85: 



I 



H 



■ 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 



BY 



A . B . CHILD, M . D 



1 All things work round like worlds. The orb of hell 

Hath yet its place in heaven, as thine and all. 

* * * spirit is the substance of all matter, 

# _ * * # # in all existence. 
Look at your spirit." 



SIXTH EDITION. 



BOSTON : 
COLBY AND RICH, PUBLISHERS, 

No. 9 Montgomery Place. 

1882. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

MRS. EUSEBIA CHILD, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the District of 

Massachusetts. 






STEREOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY, 
17 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON. 



LC Control Number il, Boston. 




tmp96 027357 



w 

^ PREFACE 



This book aims to speak of life as it is. It has 
approbation for every thing, and condemnation for 
nothing. It recognizes no merit, no demerit, in hu- 
man souls : no special heaven for pretended self- 
righteousness, and no special hell for a bleeding, 
suffering humanity. It accepts every creed, belief, 
and doctrine, every action, good and " bad," as being 
the lawful effect of a cause that lies in unseen spirit, 
which cause is above the power of human volition. 

The thoughts herein written are gathered from prac- 
tical life ; from the kitchen and the parlor ; from the 
garden and the barren field ; from the workshop and 
the playhouse ; from the gambling-house and the 
u house of God ; " from the life of the poor man and 
the life of the rich man ; from lives of want and lives 
of plenty ; from lives of pleasure and lives of afflic- 
tion ; from the holy man's goodness and the wicked 



IV PREFACE. 

man's goodness ; from those who condemn and those 
who bear condemnation ; from the mountains and the 
valleys of human distinctions ; from babyhood and 
from manhood ; from the beauties and the deformities 
of nature ; from the day and from the night ; from the 
tempest and from the sunshine ; from talking with 
devils and talking with angels ; from earth, hell, and 
heaven ; from tacit soul-persuasion ; from a feeble 
development of intuition. 

There is no starch of restraint to bind the freedom 
of the thoughts herein written ; no schoolhouse training 
to polish them; no rhetorical order to systematize 
them ; no church excellence to cover up their deformi- 
ties ; no fear of evil, devils, or men, of God, or angels, 
to cut short the utterance of a single word that the 
soul's persuasion dictates. 

Many will say that this book is at fault in the cor- 
rect use of words, and in the systematic arrangement 
of ideas. In the parlance of earthly logic, I must ad- 
mit this to be true ; but about it I have little concern. 
I have used words in keeping with my very imper- 
fect earthly education, that were most convenient to 
express ideas, and have written down these ideas as 
they were spontaneously produced. 



PREFACE. . V 

Unuttered thoughts always exist in our bosoms, and 
they are without order, without system ; they are spon- 
taneous. Our thoughts expressed in social and in 
business conversation abruptly change, regardless of 
system or of order. And wherein should there be 
order, system, and arrangement in a book, more 
than in spontaneous thought? I know not, and 
have made this book according to my knowledge. 

Some repetition of ideas, in different forms of ex- 
pression, is here allowed, for the purpose of making 
this doctrine more clearly understood. 

The ground is unreservedly taken, that the influ- 
ences of the material world are entirely negative to 
the spiritual world; that the spirit produces matter, 
and matter cannot affect that which produces it. The 
soul produces deeds that are called good and bad — 
beliefs that war with each other, that change and pass 
away — and by these products of the soul, it can in 
no way be influenced, retarded, or advanced, in its 
eternal progression. 

The whole book is a very imperfect presentation of 
a doctrine — if a doctrine it may be called — that is 
ineffably beautiful, and unutterably grand; viz., the 
doctrine that all existence is as it was meant to be by 



VI PREFACE. 

Infinite Wisdom; all that is* is good; all that is, is 
right 

Perfect faith in God is perfect confidence that 
all his works are good, the fruition of which is the 
kingdom of heaven in the soul, the millennium of 
peace on the earth. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 
GOOD AND EVIL, 1 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS,, 3 



What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 
What 



s Nature ?...., 

a God? 

s the Word of God?.... 
l the Bible of the Soul?. 



s Religion ? 5 

s Prayer ? 5 

s Virtue ? 5 

s Vice ? 6 

s the Human Soul ? 6 

s Belief? 7 

s the Human Body ? 7 



is Death ? 8 

is Suicide ? 8 

is Life ? 9 

is Intuition ? 9 

is Human Reason ? 9 

is Infidelity ? 10 

What are Human Distinctions ? 10 

What is Humanity ? 10 

What is Hell? '. 11 



VIII CONTENTS. 

Page, 

Where s Hell ? 11 

What is Heaven ? 11 

Where is Heaven ? 12 

How do we get to Heaven ? 12 

Are we in Hell or in Heaven ? 12 

What is Christ ? 14 

Who are the Followers of Christ ? 14 

How do we become Followers of Christ ? 15 

What feeds the Soul? 15 

Can the Soul be injured ? 16 

Can the Soul retrogress ? 16 

What is the Soul's Immortality ? 16 

What is a Step in Progression ? 17 

How is Truth developed in the Soul ? 17 

Is there a Standard of Truth ? 17 

Can a Man make his Belief? 17 

What is a Lie % 18 

Is Public Opinion right ? 18 

What is Imagination ? 18 

Who loves not God 1 18 

What is Prostitution ? 19 

What are Wicked Men ? 19 

What are Great Men 1 20 

What Form of Religion is best ? 20 

Is one Man superior to another Man ? 21 

Is one Soul superior to another ? 22 

Who will oppose the Truth that declares every thing Right ? . . . . 22 

Who will denounce this Book ? 22 

What will the Sectarian Press say about this Book ? 23 






I 



CONTENTS. IX 

Page 

What Creed does this Book accept ? 23 

How can that be Right which seemeth Wrcng ? 24 

Does Impurity exist in the Soul ? 24 

Do we make our Thoughts ? 24 

Can the Soul forget ? 25 

If every thing is Right why should we make Efforts in Goodness ?. 25 

What is a Miracle 1 25 

What is Association ? . . 26 

What will sustain the All-Right Doctrine ? 26 

What is Evil 1 27 

What is Good ? 27 

Can the Laws of Nature be broken ? 27 

What will disarm the Antagonism of Opposition ? 27 

What will be the principal Objection made to this Book ? 28 

What Condition of Soul will make our Heaven ? 28 

How broad is the Platform of the All-Right Belief ? 28 

What Condition of Soul will see that Whatever is, is Right ? . . . . 28 

Is the Doctrine of this Book new to this Age ? 29 

Can one Soul produce a New Doctrine ?. 29 

For what are Human Reforms % 30 

For what are Written Commandments ? 30 

Do Precepts and Rules of Action influence the Soul ? 30 

What is the Cure of what is called Evil ? 31 

Is it wrong to Curse and Swear % 31 

Does Imprisonment affect the Soul of the Prisoner ? 31 

May we Work Sundays ? 32 

What is Spiritualism ? 33 

How much is a Man's Reputation worth ? 34 

W o are Mediums ? 34 



X CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Which is the Way that leads to Heaven ? .. . 35 

Is it Murder to hang a Man % 35 

Is it Murder to kill a Man in War ? 36 

Is Ignorance the Cause of Suffering % . 36 

Is Ignorance the Cause of what we call Sin ?. 36 

What makes Suffering and Sin ? 36 

What are Spiritual Manifestations ? 37 

Who are Dangerous Men % 37 

What shall destroy the Fear of Death ? 37 

Will the All-Right Doctrine increase Immorality and Crime % . . . 37 

TRUTH 39 

THE PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS 43 

NATURE 50 

NATURE RULES 53 

WHAT APPEARS TO BE EVIL IS NOT EVIL 57 

A SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATION 60 

CAUSES OF WHAT WE CALL EVIL 63 

EVIL DOES NOT EXIST 67 

UNHAPPINESS IS NECESSARY , 70 

HARMONY AND INHARMONY 76 

THE SOUL'S PROGRESS 79 

INTUITION 84 

RELIGION — WHAT IS IT ? f . . 88 

SPIRITUALISM .... 97 

THE SOUL ONLY IS REAL 106 

SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS 108 

SELF-EXCELLENCE. ... Ill 

VISION OF MRS. ADAMS 114 

HUMAN DISTINCTIONS ,. .... 115 







CONTENTS. XI 

Page. 
EXTREMES ARE BALANCED BY EXTREMES . .. 119 

THE TIES OF SYMPATHY 123 

ALL MEN ARE IMMORTAL 125 

THERE ARE NO EVIL SPIRITS 129 

HARMONY OF SOUL THAT THE ALL-RIGHT DOCTRINE 

PRODUCES . 133 

OBSESSION 141 

OPINIONS OF OTHERS, AND REMARKS 145 

THE VIEWS OF THIS BOOK ARE IN PERFECT HARMONY 

WITH THE SAYINGS AND PRECEPTS OF CHRIST... 209 
WHAT EFFECT DOES THE DOCTRINE, WHATEVER IS, 

IS RIGHT, HAVE UPON MEN AND SOCIETY ?. ....... 216 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 



GOOD AND EVIL. 

" There surely is some guiding power 
That rightly suffers wrong, 
Gives vice to bloom its little hour, 
But virtue late and long.'' 

Good is eternal; evil is a phantom of time. Good 
is real and indestructible ; evil is unreal and exists 
only as a shadow of matter; a shadow of creation 
made by the sunlight of Infinite Wisdom. We have 
been taught that some of the actions of human life are 
good, and others are evil ; those that lead us to happi- 
ness are good, and those that lead us to suffering are > 
evil. This recognition of evil has existed through all 
ages of the world to the present time. 

In this view of life, which takes cognizance of evil, 
we have not recognized the fact that suffering is a law- 
ful property of our earthly existence as much as happi- 
ness is ; and that those acts that have caused suffering 
have been the effect of an unseen force of sufficient 
power to produce them, which force is not apparently, 
but is really, above human volition, and is in the order- 
ing of Infinite Wisdom ; is meant to be as it is. 



2 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

For every deed of human life, there has been a cause 
sufficient to produce the deed, whether the deed has 
been called good or evil ; and every cause and every 
effect exists in the bosom of Nature — is under the im- 
mediate and perfect government of Nature's laws. 
Every law of Nature is a law of God, every jot and tittle 
of which must be fulfilled. God being infinite, there 
can be no nature or law outside of infinitude. God 
being good, all that is in God is good. So every deed 
of human life is good — not one is evil. 

Good is every thing that exists; it is the whole pic- 
ture of life. Evil is the shading of the beautiful picture, 
existing only in material life ; and so evil, in the pic- 
ture, necessarily, is good. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 

" 1 never tire 

In questioning, but, at each response, 

I find a depth from which I shrink. 

My soul draws back and questions still." 



What is Nature ? 

Nature is all space and all matter — all, a million 
times told, that our feeble consciousness can yet grasp; 
all life, and the manifestations of life ; all that has 
passed, all that is, and all that ever will be. Nature, 
we conceive, is the manifestation of Infinite Power, In- 
finite Wisdom, and Infinite Perfection ; it is the prod- 
uct of undefined harmony and unutterable beauty. 



What is God? 

All that we know of God is made manifest to us 
in nature. Beyond this we know nothing of God. 
We say that God is infinite in power, in wisdom, in 
presence, in love, in goodness. In every thing we may 
recognize the spirit of God, and in the nature of all 
things we have a limited sense of what God is. 
There is no place, no space, no thing, where God is not. 
There is no power that is not God's power; no condi- 
tion that is not God's condition ; no presence that is 
not God's presence; no love that is not God's love; 
no goodness that is not God's goodness. Evil has 
no place in God, so it must be nowhere. 



4 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

What is the Word of God ? 

All matter, and what is called space, are pregnant 
with the word of God. An infinitude of worlds revolv- 
ing in harmony, speak, in the awful grandeur of silence, 
the word of God to us. Unmeasured distance tells us 
of unreached realities. The uncounted sands, that lie 
beneath the unnumbered drops that make the mighty 
ocean, speak to us of Infinity. Unnumbered forms of 
life every moment breathe the word of God. The run- 
ing brook, the waterfalls, the roaring waves, murmur 
the word of God. All the leaves on the forest trees — 
each one proclaims the word of God. The doleful 
wind sighs, the dashing tempest beats, the lightning 
flashes, and the thunder roars the word of God for us. 
Ten thousand songsters chant the word of God. Myr- 
iads of insects in varied notes proclaim the word of 
God. Each thing of life gives utterance to the word 
of God. In every human soul we read the word of 
God — always fresh, always new. We read the word 
of God on every leaf of Nature's book, fresh before us, 
from the lowest strata of the earth to the highest con- 
dition of angel life ; in every thing that hath life we 
read the word of God, and in every thing that yet 
sleepeth in inanimate beauty, we may also read the 
word of God. 



What is the Bible of the Soul ? 
We will call the great volume of Nature our Bible, 
in which we find the record that we call the word of 
God. On every gigantic leaf of Nature's book, God's 
own finger has written in indelible lines, every word of 
which is unalterable truth. This is the Bible of the 
soul of man ; the Bible in which we may read, mark, 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 5 

learn, and inwardly digest the imperishable truths of 
God's infinite love. 

My soul is my Bible, in which I read the truths of 
eternal life. My soul's longings and its desires are the 
utterances of my Bible that commands the food that 
satisfies its longings and its desires. 



What is Religion? 
Religion is the natural desire of the soul ; a desire 
for something that the soul does not possess. Every 
desire is religion to the soul that produces the desire. 
Desire is a wish, a longing for something not yet pos- 
sessed. Whatever the desire may be, whether it is 
called good or bad, that desire is the natural religion 
of the soul that develops the desire. Religion is nat- 
ural and inevitable ; it is a property of human life. 
Nature governs and directs it ; the soul produces it. 



What is Prayer ? 
Prayer is an uttered or unuttered petition to com- 
mand what the soul craves. So near is prayer allied to 
religion, that they are inseparable. Every breath is a 
prayer ; every throb of the heart is a prayer ; every de- 
sire that makes every action of life is a prayer. Prayer, 
in every human soul, ceases not from the cradle to the 
grave. Nature commands us to pray without ceasing, 
and sternly enforces obedience. Christ also says, 
" Pray without ceasing." This we all do, and ever 
have done. 



What is Virtue ? 
Virtue, we say, is self-denial ; it is that manifestation 
of life which makes us happy ; that contributes to our 



1* 



6 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

earthly well-being ; that avoids pain and embraces 
pleasure ; that shuns deformity and seeks beauty. Vir- 
tue is the angel guardian of material beauty ; the mother 
of earthly happiness ; the safeguard and the protector of 
the material garment that covers the soul while it lives 
on earth. Virtue, to our earthly existence, is beauti- 
ful ; it is lovely. When earthly love ceases to exist, vir- 
tue ceases j;o exist, and in its place comes a higher 
development of soul. 



What is Vice? 
Vice is an enemy to this world's beauty. It is a man- 
ifestation of life that produces pain, and repels earthly 
love ; it is sand-paper to the earthly covering of the soul, 
that takes ail the earthly polish off, and some of the 
earthly substance too. It is an agent to break by de- 
grees our earthly love. It wears off the material gar- 
ments that clothe our souls in our earthly existence, 
and, by its agency, the soul gets freed from earthy matter 
sooner. Vice and virtue, too, are beautiful to the eyes 
of the soul. Both are right and in place. 



WJiat is the Human Soul ? 
An unmeasured and undefined reality ; for aught we 
know it has no beginning, and we have a tacit con- 
sciousness that it has no end. It has reality above all 
conscious existence ; it possesses inherent power over 
matter, and all the influences of the material world. 
We conceive that it emanates from Infinite Wisdom, 
and will ever and forever advance in its progression 
toward Infinite Perfectness. It is invisible to sensuous 
eyes, and cannot be judged of by sensuous compari- 
sons. It cannot be influenced by things of earth or 



WHATEVER IS, IS KTOHT. 7 

time. It is indestructible, and consequently, it cannut 
be injured; it is eternal, and consequently, cannot be 
influenced by that which is not eternal ; it holds with- 
in itself the elements of all truth, and consequently, 
cannot be taught. Truth is developed in the soul by 
natural growth ; so it can never receive a truth from the 
teachings of another soul. Every deed of human life 
is the effect of the soul ; so good deeds or bad deeds 
can have no influence upon it. The soul is above the 
influence of all earthly powers ; so by them it cannot 
be advanced or retarded in its progression. The human 
soul is the only significant possession of our existence. 
It is the alpha and the omega, the sum and substance 
of human life. 



What is Belief? 

Belief is a deduction of material philosophy ; of 
earthly intelligence - — that changes as material things 
change. It is of the evidences of material things, which, 
like footprints on the shores of time, are washed away 
and gone forever by one wave from the great ocean of 
spiritual truth that breaks through the porthole of the 
soul's intuition. Belief is a product of the soul in ma- 
terial existence, and like material things, is subject to 
change and dissolution. Belief is a property of the 
material world; it is worthless and meaningless to the 
spirit. 



What is the Human Body ? 

It is the effect of the soul ; it is the product of the 
soul's development ; it is the effect of the soul's growth; 
it is a garment the soul is clothed with, and wears for 
a time. From the moment of its development the 



8 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

process of the soul's growth is ever struggling to throw it 
off. From the moment of its creation, its decay begins. 
The human body becomes in time the offal of the soul ; 
it holds to the soul a while, but in the order of nature it 
must sooner or later fall off. While matter is held by 
the soul, life is manifest through it; the soul's life 
exists the same when matter leaves it as it did before ; 
the soul is the same precisely after the garment is shed 
as it was before. Death of the human body has no 
influence upon the soul. The human body dies and 
returns to dust, and by this incident in the soul's exist- 
ence, only the body changes — not the soul. 






What is Death ? 

To life there is no death. Life can never die. All 
life inevitably lives forever. Life is spirit that produces 
matter that clothes life ; which matter, when ripened 
and matured, falls from the thing of life like leaves 
that fall from the living tree. What we call death is 
but the falling off of the flesh, blood, and bones from the 
beautiful spirit of enduring life. 



What is Suicide ? 

u Premature death," we say. In nature there is noth- 
ing too early — nothing too late — nothing is prema- 
ture. From the moment of our birth to the period we 
call death, the hand of nature, acting through each one 
of us, is ever doing a suicidal work. Nature moves 
the murderer's hand no less than she prolongs life to 
ripened maturity. Suicide is only a separation of the 
material body from the soul before the threads are 
worn and rotten. The natural love of life generally 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 9 

avoids the necessity of this act, and when this natural 
love ceases to act, Nature takes her course, and what 
we call suicide is the consequence. 



What is Life ? 

Life is spirit. Spirit is a property of eternity ; all 
life, both vegetable and animal, we conceive is immor- 
tal. No life can ever cease to be. Life makes matter 
appear animated when in it, and when it goes out 
again matter appears dead. All we know of life is 
its manifestations through materialism, which afford 
us but a faint knowledge of its reality. What is life ? 
It is impossible to tell by the aid of material philoso- 
phy ; intuition, without the aid of words alone, can 
answer. Life is spirit, and spirit is immortality; and 
immortality is life — is spirit. 



What is Intuition ? 
Intuition is spontaneous thought, developed by nat- 
ural growth of soul, independent of all external influ- 
ences ; it is the tacit persuasion of the inner being ; 
it is the positive knowledge of the soul that comes 
from whence we know not. It is the volition of truth; 
it is the light of spiritual realities ; it is the bright and 
morning star that is rising in the spiritual firmament 
now ; it is the monitor of the soul, and by it the soul 
learns its first lessons of eternal truth, and through 
eternity shall never cease to learn. 



What is Human Reason ? 
It is one of the guardian angels of our material ex- 
istence ; it is the product of the soul acting through 



10 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

matter ; it can control material things, not spiritual 
things ; it is an effect of the soul that is allied to ma- 
terial philosophy, and with the material things of earth 
will sometime give place to the higher development of 
intuition. 



What is Infidelity ? 
Infidelity is to me that which another believes, and 
that which I do not believe. If I believe in one creed 
only, I am infidel to all other creeds ; if I believe in two 
creeds, I am less infidel ; if I believe in all creeds I 
am not infidel at all. So the greatest infidel believes 
that only one creed is right, while he that is not an 
infidel at all, believes that every creed is right; — believes 
that every creed is an effect of a lawful cause that 
exists in nature. 



What are Human Distinctions? 
Properties of the material world that death brings to 
one level. Distinctions among men are changeable, 
unenduring ; are of transient significance, which the 
laws of God in nature govern with impartiality, and 
reduce to one common dissolution — ashes to ashes, 
dust to dust. High and low are properties of matter, 
not of the soul ; good and bad are distinctions of time, 
not of eternity ; inferior and superior belong to earth, 
not to heaven. 



Wliat is Humanity? 
Humanity is a great level sea of throbbing life, com- 
posed of countless millions of immortal souls germi- 
nating in the darkness of matter, to grow up in the 
light of spirit and blossom in heaven ; one great house- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 11 . 

hold of beings, whose aims and purpose^ are one, viz., 
happiness now and happiness hereafter. Humanity is 
a family; God is the Father of this family; Nature takes 
care of this family, and holds every one sternly obedi- 
ent to her laws, without any respect of persons — with- 
out any recognition of the distinctions of good and 
evil. 



What is Hell? 
Hell is suffering. Its conditions are contention and 
war; a conflict and a struggle for happiness; a des- 
perate fight with the dark phantom called Evil ; an un- 
mitigated war with the shadow of matter called the 
Devil, who was never yet seen with sensuous eyes or 
with spiritual eyes. Hell is a soul-conflict, which is 
the effect of soul growth ; it is a struggle between the 
material and the spiritual world ; it is a breaking of 
earthly affections, and a rising of the soul out of the 
darkness of the material, to the light and beauty of 
spiritual life. 



Where is Hell? 

In the bosom of the sufferer, always. It may be 
anywhere, it may be everywhere, where suffering is. 
There is no avenue of earth where suffering does not 
exist. 



What is Heaven ? 
Heaven is rest of the soul. All that is peace, harmony, 
joy, happiness, is heaven; all that presents evidence of 
right and good ; all that evinces wisdom, order, design 
in the plan of creation, are emanations of beauty that 
make up the atmosphere of heaven, which every sou] 



12 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

in heaven breathes. Heaven is a condition of the inner 
man, that sees goodness and right in every thing; order, 
design, harmony, and beauty existing in all places and 
conditions throughout the universe of God. Heaven is 
that condition of soul which feels that whatever is, is 

right. 

Where is Heaven? 
Christ has said that " the kingdom of heaven is 
within us. 5 ' There is no place to look for heaven, ex- 
cept it be within the longing, throbbing soul. If any- 
where, there heaven is, and each soul for itself finds it 
there. Heaven is everywhere, is anywhere where the 
soul is in peace, in harmony, and in love with all 
existence. 



How do we get to Heaven ? 
By the natural process of soul-development ; by suf- 
fering and conflict ; by the power of the laws of God 
acting in nature. Never by our own efforts. 



Are we in Heaven or Hell ? 
Do we desire to know what our own condition is — 
how much we possess of heaven, and how much of 
hell ? Let us examine ourselves. Heaven is peace, 
and hell is war. How much wrong do we find in the 
world? Our opposition, our warlike faculties are ac- 
tive in proportion to our discovery of wrong, and our 
heaven is commensurate with our peace; harmony 
in the soul with all things. A heavenly condition of 
the soul does not see or resist any wrong. Is our con- 
demnation sent forth to every thing, and everybody ? 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 13 

Are people all to blame — all very wicked — and is 
almost every thing wrong ? If so, we are in that condi- 
tion of spiritual growth where the laws of nature are 
throwing off the elements of wrong in us. This is a 
necessity in one degree of the soul's growth, which 
degree is war, antagonism, inharmony, is hell. 

" Seek first the kingdom of heaven," says the holy 
Jesus. By our natural grow T th we will find it. Have 
we grown to it? How near are we allied to that 
heavenly condition, where all is peace, harmony, and 
love ; w T here all that exists appears right, and nothing 
that exists appears wrong? 

A soul of heaven has confidence in God ; in all his 
works ; sees no wrong anywhere ; sees beauty in every 
thing ; sees God in all nature ; unmeasured beauty 
in the immortal soul ; beauty in deformity the same as 
in symmetry — for the hand of God is in both; sees 
through the flimsy vapor of pollution and degradation 
emanating from one soul, as being only the result of a 
purifying process of that soul ; the lawful effect of a 
means our Father uses to bring his child to heaven 
sooner. The soul of heaven sees unutterable beauty 
in immortal life, whatever may be its condition of 
progress, or degree of growth. All God's children are 
beautiful ; all life and all things are beautiful. The 
soul of heaven is in harmony with the lowest life, with 
even the elements of a stone ; there is no repulsion ; 
can be with serpents without a shudder or a shriek, 
and see in them the work of a divine hand ; can behold 
the worst manifestations of human life without re- 
proach or blame. Are we at peace with all men and 
all life ? Do we see no wrong, but every thing right ? 
If so, there is peace within the soul ; the kingdom of 
2 



14 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

heaven is there, and the soul is nearly allied in condi- 
tion to that world where all is peace, harmony, and 
love — where there is no evil, no fault, no wrong. 

Thus we may measure our capacities for hell or 
heaven — for an early or a more advanced condition of 
spirit-life. Our attractions for evil are determined by 
our perceptions of evil — our attractions for good, by 
our perceptions of good. 

Then are we in hell or in heaven ? Each one can 
answer for himself or for herself by looking into his or 
her own heart. 



Wliatis Christ? 

A brilliancy of light is presented now to my vision, 
too great for the present feeble development of my 
soul to endure ! I cannot tell. I cannot define the 
immense magnitude of eternal beauty that lies before 
me ! I fail to tell who Christ is ! In the deepest 
humility I can only ask for strength to sustain me, and 
for shadows to darken my vision ! 

What is Christ ? I do not wonder now that human- 
ity called Christ, God. In tearful admiration — in 
shrinking awe — I can only ask is Christ our example ? 
Are we to be what he is ? If so, God ! sustain 
and guide us in our progression. 



Wlio are the Followers of Christ ? 
Those who drink the cup of bitterness to its dregs ; 
those who suffer in the gardens of earth ; those whose 
earthly existence is crucified ; those who bind up the 
bleeding wounds of a suffering humanity ; those who 
eat with publicans and sinners ; those who commune 
with devils and with angels : those whose affections 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 15 

are set on spiritual things that endure, more than on 
things of earth that perish; those who recognize a 
power that transcends the boundaries of matter, and 
reaches out to grasp the limitless beauties that are pre- 
pared and waiting for them in the many mansions of 
their heavenly homes. 

How do we become Followers of Christ ? 
By natural soul-development, not by preaching, pray- 
ing, singing, exhortation, talking, or writing. We be- 
come followers of Christ involuntarily, by the inflowing 
of God's holy love that feeds the soul and makes it 
grow, independent of volition, or all the material con- 
structions or appliances in church organizations, rites, 
forms, and ceremonies. He who professes to war with 
the inflexible powers of nature, and with the soul 
opinions of the masses of humanity, because he is a 
member of a church, and thinks evil is everywhere out- 
side, is no more a follower of Christ than he who is out- 
side the church. 



What feeds the Soul? 

That which is like itself; that which is unseen, im- 
mortal, and eternal. Nothing that belongs to earth 
can feed it, or influence its progression. The soul is 
fed by the unseen rivers of God's love that flows every- 
where. The soul is fed and nurtured for a while in 
unconsciousness, as the material existence of an in- 
fant is, for a while, fed and nurtured in unconscious 
development in the arms of a fond and loving parent. 
That which feeds the soul and makes it grow, is be- 
yond our powers of development yet to understand and 
know. 



16 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

Can the Soul be injured? 
If the soul can be injured, it must show marks, when 
injured, of decay and dissolution, thus rendering the 
certainty of its immortality, at best, precarious. To in- 
jure the soul is to take worth from its value, and re- 
peated injuries would render it valueless. This cannot 
be done to that which has eternal worth. The soul is 
life; life cannot be injured. Susceptibility of the soul 
to injury, contradicts its property of immortality. The 
soul cannot be injured. 



Can the Soul retrogress? 
If the soul can retrogress it does not possess the 
property of eternal progress, for repeated retrogressions 
would carry it back where its identity commenced, and 
thus its identity would be lost, whereby its progress 
would be annihilated. The soul can neither go back- 
ward, nor be retarded, for its inherent powers of eternal 
progress command an influence that holds it and 
moves it onward forever. 



What is the SouVs Immortality ? 

It is a problem of human existence, unsolved by 
human philosophies. The soul's immortality has never 
been proved by the philosophies of matter, and never 
can be. The soul's immortality is a reality which be- 
comes positive to our consciousness alone by our own 
intuition. Intuition is the only real evidence of immor- 
tality. The communion of spirits with mortals is a 
material evidence that the soul lives after death, as posi- 
tive and as sure as any evidence of material philosophy ; 
but there is a higher and more abiding evidence of tne 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 17 

soul's immortality than this, which is the spontaneous 
persuasion of every soul. 



What is a Step in Progression . 
It is an intuitive, conscious perception of a new truth 
that nature has developed out of the soul. Every step 
of progress is a step on ground untrodden by the soul 
that takes it. Every step in progress is an original ex- 
perience of truth, to the soul that develops it. 



How is Truth developed in the Soul? 
By intuition, always. The soul never did, nor never 
can, receive that which to itself is a truth, from exter- 
nal teachings — from the schoolhouse or the meeting- 
house. The first truth that the soul ever received, 
which is to be a property of its eternal existence, is the 
effect of intuitive development. 



Is there a Standard for Truth ? 
Yes. Each soul has its own standard ; but no one 
can see a truth for another. Each soul is alone the 
lawful producer and possessor of its own truths. There 
is no universal standard of religious truth yet recog- 
nized for every one, because we see yet with sensuous 
vision, only one or more sides of a thing that has a 
thousand other sides. A spirit view, perhaps, will cover 
the whole, and see every side as parts of one great, 
beautiful, harmonious whole. To intuitive perception 
there may be a universal standard of truth. 



Can a Man make his Belief? 
No ; no more than he can make the laws of nature 

2* 



18 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 



that produced himself. Belief is an effect of life, 
moulded in our natural organization, by which it is pro 
duced. Belief is as involuntary as the beating of the 
heart ; as is our inspiration and expiration ; as is our 
birth and our death. 






What is a Lie ? 
A lie is true to the cause that produced it ; so what 
we call a lie is a truth that exists in nature, just as real 
as is what we call a truth. The cause of a lie exists 
in nature; the cause of a truth exists in nature, and 
the effect of each cause is wrought out in nature. 
Nature is always true in her work ; so both a truth and 
what we call a lie arc lawful and right in the great plan 
of existence. A lie is a truth intrinsically; it holds a 
lawful place in creation ; it is a necessity, i 



Is Public Opinion right ? 
It is always right, for it is a lawful effect of a natural 
cause. Thus every opinion is right. Public opinion is 
always right for that condition of the public mind that 
produces and supports it. 



What is the Imagination ? 
The faint and feeble glimmerings of approaching 
intuition, more real than earthly science and earthly 
philosophies ; more real and more enduring than the 
monuments of time which brick and mortar make. 



Who Loves not God? 

No one. Every one loves something, and in every 

thing exists the spirit of God. In every love exists our 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 19 

love of God ; and every one loves to the full extent of 
his or her capacity. Love is never the effect of volition ; 
but is always spontaneous. Every one naturally loves 
something, and every love that exists in the universe, 
no matter what that love is, is a love which the lover 
has for God. Everybody loves God. 



What is Prostitution? 
It is a condition of earthly degradation, produced by 
the distinctions of the material world, not by soul com- 
parisons. The degradation of prostitution is a phan- 
tom of materialism that belongs to self-righteousness ; 
that is produced by the fictitious distinctions of self- 
excellence ; prostitution, so-called, in reality is an undis- 
guised condition of life; an open expression of the ele- 
ments of existence that are spontaneous and natural, 
and that are antagonistic to material glory. Prostitu- 
tion is an enemy to the good, the true, the beautiful — 
that are the crowning excellencies of the material world. 



What are Wicked Men ? 
Those whose works make themselves suffer, and those 
who are around them. Wicked men are distinguished 
from holy men by the exhibition of their outer life ; by 
manifestation of their souls through materialism. The 
standard of judgment that defines a wicked man, is 
material, and, consequently, must be uncertain ; the 
vision that sees a wicked man, is sensuous, consequently 
must fail to see realities that are unchangeable. What 
are called wicked deeds are lawful effects of one soul, 
as much as what are called holy deeds are lawful effects 
of another soul. There is a cause that lies back, beyond 



20 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT 






the power of volition in the holy man, and in the 
wicked man ; both are perfectly controlled by the laws 
of nature. The garment of material love, that the soul 
of the wicked man wears, becomes broken, torn, and 
ragged ; the garment of material love, that the soul of 
the holy man wears, is more perfect, is whole and beau- 
tiful. It is material love in perfectness that constitutes 
what is called holiness ; it is material love that is 
broken and torn, that constitutes what we call wicked- 
ness. Both holiness and wickedness are lawful in 
nature, and are each unqualifiedly right. One supports 
our earthly affections, the other breaks them^ one holds 
the soul in bondage longer, the other lets it free sooner. 



What form of Religion is best? 
The religion of the Indian is as true to the Indian, 
as the religion of the Christian is true to the Christian. 
So it is of all the various religions on earth. The 



What are Great Men ? 
Greatness among men is alone a property of the 
sensuous world ; it does not belong to the world of 
spirits. Greatness of mind belongs to the philosophies 
of the earth, which philosophies, like the earth, are ma- 
terial, and are subject to the same laws. No greatness 
among men goes beyond the boundaries of the love of 
earth. The right that we have, to claim that the spirits 
of Washington, Fenelon, Shakspeare, and Napoleon, 
are a whit greater than the spirits of their washer- 
women and scavengers, is only warranted by the stand- 
ard of material philosophy, which, to the soul, is as a 
fiction ; is as a shadow of matter. 






IS RIGHT. 21 

religion of Mahomet is no more true than the religion 
of Christ. Each is true to the cause that produces it; 
both are the effect of soul causes, of human action ; 
both are lawful — each one is in its time and place. So 
it is of all religious sects and creeds. Every sect is 
right, every creed right. Every form of religion is best 
to the condition that produces it. 



Is one Man superior to another Man ? 
In his physical being he may be. He may weigh 
more; he may have more money; he may have more 
of the philosophies of matter; he may have handsomer 
morals and a cleaner earthly religion ; he may have a 
handsomer face and form, a handsomer dress ; he may 
cheat more legally and trade more shrewdly ; he may 
talk more fluently and write more elegantly ; he may 
live in a handsomer house and repose more comfortably 
in the arms of luxury. Tn all these earthly things, and 
a thousand more of a kindred nature, one man may be 
superior to another : but all this superiority is like the 
superiority seen in the 

" track of feet, 



Left on Tampa's desert strand; 
Soon as the rising tide shall beat, 
Their marks shall vanish from the sand. ,J 

The soul of one man is not superior to the soul of 
another man, for if one possesses the properties of eter' 
nal life and unending progress, the other also does. 
These properties, when recognized, put an end to the 
thought of superior and inferior, as applied to the 
beautiful soul. Hence one man is not superior to 
another man. 



22 WHATEVER IS, IS R'GHT. 

Is one Soul superior to another Soul ? 
In spiritual realities there can be no comparisons ; 
comparisons are forbidden ; there is no superiority, no 
inferiority. Comparison belongs to the material world ; 
judgment does not reach the spiritual world, where the 
shadows of matter have vanished. Each soul has un- 
measured beauties, unmeasured progress, and a oneness 
of harmony, a blending of sympathy, that obliterates, 
the lines of comparison whereby judgment ceases to 
exist. One soul is not superior to another soul. The 
soul in spirit alone can obey the command, u Judge not" 
for judgment belongeth not to the soul. 



Who will oppose the Truth that declares every thing 
right ? 

Those who are yet unable to bear the immense 
beauty of its mighty reality. The bright and dazzling 
effulgence, the clear and beautiful light of this truth, 
has been wisely hidden from our fe°ble vision for a 
time, by a belief in the existence of evil, which in the 
light of truth is only a shadow — a shadow of neces- 
sity — which is a fiction in reality. Sensuous, limited 
perception, will oppose this beautiful truth, until the 
vision is strong enough to bear it. 



Who ivill denounce this Book ? 

Earthly science ; popular religion ; self-excellence 
and self-righteousness. Men who have gathered in 
considerable knowledge of the philosophies of matter ; 
who are very correct, consistent, and conservative ; 
very statistical, historical, elaborate, and argumentative 
— if they condescend to read it, will say this book is 



IS RIGHT. 23 

wofully wanting in that which they love and cherish 
most. Men who are bound to the bigotry of a single 
creed will say it is infidelity, because they cannot be- 
lieve any thing outside their own creed ; consequently, 
what they cannot believe is to them infidelity, and will 
be branded with their own stamp of ignominy. Self- 
excellent and self-righteous men will say in their hearts, 
i« Why, this book brings all men upon one common 
level ; if no one is better, if no one is worse, all have 
equal claims to happiness. Where is my reward for 
my excellence and my righteousness above the man 
who is not so excellent and so righteous as I am ? " 
To such this book will give offence, and from such it 
will receive unmeasured 'scandal. But such treatment 
of views not contained in their own creeds is perfectly 
right, for it is lawful in nature. 



What will the Sectarian Press say about this Book? 

I suppose sectarian editors will hold this book with 
the tongs, turn its leaves over with the poker, and speak 
of it as being as fatal to their religion and morals as 
the sirocco, the upas, and the serpents venom is to human 
life. If sectarian newspapers notice this book at all, 
it will be presented in the light of only one creed, and 
will be condemned with severity. This will be right. 



What Creed does this Book accept ? 

Every creed — not one more than another. Every 

creed is true in its condition and right in its place. 

This doctrine of " Whatever Is, is Right," takes in 

I every creed and every doctrine ; it has no narrow limits 

! of belief ; no boundaries of sect ; no landmarks of 



24 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

religion, but it reaches out to the shores of spiritual in- 
finity. This doctrine opposes no creed nor any belief 
in creation. 



How can that be Right which seemeth Wrong ? 

The right lies latent in what is called the wrong. The 
most beautiful things come to us sometimes shrouded in 
a mantle of darkness, and it is this darkness that we call 
wrong. Out of the darkest cloud comes the intensest 
light — the lightning's flash; out of the dark night 
comes the gentle dews to refresh the earth ; out of stag- 
nant, muddy water comes the loveliest, sweetest flower; 
out of affliction comes a softening and purification of 
our lives ; out of wrong actions comes chastisement that 
humbles and beautifies our existence ; out of what 
seems to us the greatest wrongs comes always the 
greatest good. 



Does Impurity exist in the Soul ? 

No. Impurity exists only in matter and is only pal- 
pable to material perception. To the soul, and to the 
vision of the soul all things are pure — thus we say, to 
the pure in heart all things are pure. Sensuous eyes 
see impurity in sensuous things. Soul perception dis- 
covers no impurity anywhere in the creation of God. 



Do we make our Thoughts ? 

Our thoughts are always involuntary. Like the beat- 
ing of our hearts and like our respiration, they are not 
produced by our will. There must be some acting 
power behind, unseen by us, that makes us live and 
breathe and think. We neither make nor control our 



UUl 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 25 

thoughts. All thoughts are right. Devilish thoughts 
have no less merit than angel thoughts. All thoughts 
are the spontaneous productions of nature. 



Can the Soul forget ? 

Every truth of intuition is indelibly inscribed upon 
the soul, and will live there forever. The seeming 
truths of evil fade away and are forgotten in the light 
of real truths. Shadows vanish and light endures. A 
consciousness of evil is not intuition, and is not in- 
scribed upon the soul ; shadows of matter do not influ- 
ence the soul ; goodness springs forth in shadows ; we 
remember the good forever, but the shadows fade away. 
Intuition comes up in the darkness of philosophies, as 
the sun comes up to dispel the darkness of the night. 



If every thing is right, ivhy should we make Efforts in 
Goodness ? 

Because we cannot help so doing. To do good is 
a part of the work of life — and to our earthly and 
spiritual consciousness it is the most beautiful part. 
To do that which makes ourselves and others happy is 
a natural necessity of our earthly existence, and of our 
spiritual existence. Do we ask why we should make 
efforts in goodness ? The reason is, necessity ; the 
cause is, the soul. 



What is a Miracle ? 
That which human philosophy cannot explain. 
Every thing is a miracle to the present development of 
our consciousness. We have never seen nor com- 
prehended the yet unseen causes of existence and the 
3 



26 WHATEVER IS. IS RIGHT. 

unseen laws that govern all things. The production of 
space is to us a miracle, for it is a secret ; the produc- 
tion of life is a miracle, for it is to us a secret ; the 
production of matter by spirit is a miracle, for it is a 
secret. We have no knowledge of the causes that pro- 
duce, and of the laws that govern, all things, and they 
are miracles to us. 



What is Association ? 
It is the effect of spirit attraction, which attraction 
makes like seek its like throughout the universe. In 
nature particles attract kindred particles, and on the 
threads of spirit attraction they run to meet each other, 
and their embrace makes physical forms, makes associa- 
tion of physical atoms. The earth is thus made and all 
its various parts ; the granite rock and all rocks ; the 
sands and grains produced by attrition again reform in 
solid masses. Trees are thus formed, all vegetables, and 
all animals. The human body is thus produced. It is 
spirit that produces all associations through the agency 
of unseen life. The association of intelligent beings 
is governed by the same law of spirit attraction. 



What will sustain the All- Right Doctrine ? 
The teachings of Christ will sustain it. Common 
sense will sustain it. The soul's deepest longings will 
sustain it. The reign of peace will sustain it. Heaven 
will sustain it. Humanity will some time sustain it, 
and all the powers of hell will join their efforts with the 
angels of love and mercy and work for it, for in it exist 
the elements of a universal heaven, a heaven for all, 
without one single exception ; a heaven from which no 
outcast ever goes. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 27 

What is Evil? 
"What is called evil is good. Nothing is evil in 
reality, for what appears on the surface to be evil, is 
only a necessary effect of goodness ; it is the effect of 
wisdom acting ever, for the best good of all. Evil is an 
ignis fatuuS) chased by all humanity, but was never yet 
grasped ; it is a shadow of earthly vision that will nevei 
be seen in the existence of spiritual light. 



What is Good? 
Good is every thing, for every thing is good. Every 
thing that is, was produced by Infinite Wisdom and 
Infinite Goodness. The day is good, the night is good; 
light is good, and darkness is good ; knowledge is 
good, and ignorance is good ; virtue is good, and 
sin is good ; happiness is good, and suffering is good; 
life is good, and death is good ; every human being 
is good, and every human action is good ; God is 
good, and every thing that he has made is good. 



Can the Laws of Nature be broken ? 
No. If the laws of nature could be broken, they 
might be injured and destroyed. It is impossible to 
break, injure, influence, or destroy a law of nature. 
Every law of matter and of spirit is fixed and unalter- 
able, and each in its own condition is always fulfilled. 



What will disarm the Antagonism of Opposition? 
A cessation of opposition ; perfect harmony with 
all things that exist ; perfect peace with God and with 
all men ; in a word, a recognition that whatever is, is 
right, and what will be, will be right. 



28 WHATEVER IS, IS RTOHT. 

Wliat will be the Principal Objection made to this Book ? 
It will be claimed that it is infidelity. In answer to 
this objection I would ask, In what is this book ia< 
fidel ? Does it not believe in every thing ? It accepts 
every creed as being true to the cause that producec 
each. It accepts every word of the Bible as being 
true, and every word of every other book as being true 
also. It accepts every manifestation of human life as 
being a lawful effect of a cause in nature. This 
book " accepteth all things, believeth all things," and 
therefore it is not infidelity. 



What Condition of Soul ivill make our Heaven? 
That condition alone which can recognize a heaven 
gained for every other soul in existence ; a condition 
that has shed the scales of self-righteousness and sees 
no evil in others ; a condition that produces the deep 
soul conviction, and the clear spiritual perception, that 
whatever is, is right. 



How broad is the Platform of the All- Right Belief? 

As broad as the universe. It is a platform on which 
every creed and every belief has a place. Every religion 
that is called religion, and every religion that is not 
called religion, is within the circle of this religion. 
This platform is broad enough to take every thing and 
everybody upon it, and reject nothing and nobody. It is 
humanitarian and universal ; on it, all the inhabitants 
of hell, earth, and heaven belong, with equal rights. 



i 



Wliat Condition of Soul will see that Whatever is, is 

Right ? 
The condition of intuition alone which feels this 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 29 

doctrine true, and with the vision of the soul can see 
it true. All external evidence, all the philosophies of 
the material world, can never solve the problem of evil, 
and prove and see that it is right. The condition of 
the soul that sees goodness in every thing, sees above 
the uncertain evidences of the philosophies of time and 
matter. 



Is the Doctrine of this Book new to this Age ? 

The recognition that whatever is, is right, is not new. 
But the doctrine that the soul cannot be influenced by 
the powers of the material world, by human actions 
and teachings, by any deed, or any earthly manifesta- 
tion of life, to this age and generation, is a new doc- 
trine. This doctrine is intuitively developed in the 
unspoken feelings of thousands to-day. Tacit persua- 
sion expresses it in spirit. 

The consciousness of the truth that the soul can only 
be influenced by that which is like itself, that which is 
unseen and immortal, is the effect of intuition, not the 
effect of education, for no books and no human teach- 
ings tell us this. The doctrine, of whatever is, is right, 
in this view of the soul's relation to the material world, 
alone can be accepted. The philosophies of the earth 
can never accept this doctrine. That power of the soul 
which can see spirit causes, the power of intuition 
alone, can or will accept the doctrine of whatever is, is 
right. This age develops the recognition of intuition, 
as being a thing more real than reason and philoso- 
phy- 

Can one Soul produce a new Doctrine ? 
No. A new doctrine pr a new thought is the prod- 
3* 



30 WHATEVER IS, TS RIGHT. 

act of an age, not of an individual. Humanity by an 
unseen power of sympathy develops truth, and it finds 
utterance through many simultaneously. All humanity 
help to produce the development of a new truth, of a 
new invention. 



For what are Human Reforms ? 

For the advancement of the excellencies of the ma- 
terial world ; all reformatory steps are the effects of the 
growing soul, never a means of the soul's growth. Tem- 
perance societies, anti-slavery societies, anti-tobacco 
societies, moral and intellectual culture societies, and 
all religious societies, alone tend to material excellence 
and advance material glory. One good, well-managed, 
popular, anti-self-righteous society would break the 
backbone of them all. But all these societies are the 
lawful effects of the expanding human soul, in its early 
infant growth. As effects of the soul they are necessary 
and right. Not one of them has any influence upon 
the soul's progress. 



For what are Written Commandments ? 

For government and order in the material world. 
No commandment either written or spoken, ever yet 
had any influence upon the soul. 



Do Precepts and Rules of Action influence the Soul? 

Never; in no possible contingency; for the soul is 
above the influence of language made of words. Pre- 
cepts and rules of action are for the material, not the 
spiritual, world. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 31 

What is the Cure of what is called Evil ? 
In answer to this question, I would ask, fiist, is 
nature sick? Does nature need any remedial agents? 
We talk of curing evil. Why, do we know that to 
talk thus, is to talk about curing God. Does Infinite 
Power need a cure ? If so, for what? For the mani- 
festations of Infinite Wisdom in the order of creation, 
which the feeble perception of man cannot see the pur- 
pose of? No ; we can suggest no cure for the benefit of 
the already perfect order of Infinite Wisdom and Power 
as manifested through all nature. 



Is it wrong to curse and sivear. 

Men curse and swear ; and, for aught we know, they 
have since Eve gave birth to Cain. There is a cause 
for this ; and while this cause exists, men will curse 
and swear. Acid water mixed with soda water has 
always made bubbles rise on the surface, and always 
will; for this there is a cause, too, over which man has 
no control ; man cannot curse and swear without a 
cause ; bubbles will not rise on water without a cause. 

Nature calls forth the true elements of every soul, 
not unlawfully, but lawfully. Has any one a good 
reason for saying that the cause in nature that makes 
men swear, is not right? We may say that cursing 
and swearing is very foolish, but we cannot say the 
cause is outside of nature. 



Does Imprisonment affect the Soul of the Prisoner ? 

No. Prison-houses answer one end of human law. 
We may confine within a prison, a man's material 
existence, while all the powers of earth cannot there con- 



32 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

fine his soul. No human tribunal, no prison walls, nor 
iron bars, can confine the soul's thoughts and desires. 
The thoughts of my brother, who is confined in the 
dungeon of a prison, are not confined there ; they travel 
at their own pleasure ; perhaps to the fireside of their 
earliest conscious existence, there to meet the embrace 
of a loving mother and affectionate sisters ; they may 
travel through all the scenes of past life, and all over 
the earth, and, by the aid of angels, the thoughts of 
the so-called rebel may wing their flight to behold the 
beauties of the spiritual world, and then on, and on, 
toward limitless infinity. The soul cannot be touched 
or influenced by human laws, by prison discipline. 
Human legislations, human tribunals, and human exe- 
cutions, are effects of the soul — not things which can 
touch or influence it. All these are for the intended 
purpose of keeping the crockery in the warehouse of 
the material world from being smashed and broken ; but 
the success is almost a failure, if not quite. I do not 
say that these things are wrong. No; they are right; 
they are just as lawful in Nature's courses, as are the 
crimes that cause their existence — all are effects of 
Nature's causes. 



May we work on Sunday? 
Sunday, we have been taught, is more holy than any 
other day. Does the revelation of God in nature say 
this ? We breathe, and our hearts beat about the same 
on Sunday as on Monday ; we eat and drink the same ; 
vegetation grows the same ; the earth revolves ; water 
runs ; the sun shines. All things in nature go on the 
same on Sunday as they do on the other days of the 
week. Is nature our Bible ? If so, then we will go 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 33 

there to know what we shall do on Sunday. Christ 
was spontaneous and natural ; he worked on Sunday, 
and taught us to, notwithstanding the Jewish law was 
against it. In all the vast domain of nature, there can- 
not be discovered any difference in her works on Sun- 
day from her works on any other day of the week. 
The sacredness claimed for Sunday above any other 
day that God has made is a shadow which fades out in 
the light of common sense. It is nowhere found writ- 
ten in the Bible of nature. 

Sunday may be a day of rest and recreation. And 
when we labor less to protect self-possessions ; when we 
need no locks, no bolts to turn against our brothers ; 
no landmarks and fences to tell what is " mine" " not 
yours ;" when we need no courts of justice to divide 
what property is mine and what is yours ; when we 
need no guns to shoot men with — then we shall have 
to labor less, and we may have two days in the week 
of rest and recreation instead of one. And at our pleas- 
ure we may hold converse with one another and with 
angels ; we may work, or we may play. 



Wliat is Spiritualism ? 
Ages yet to come will not define this word. The 
superficial fact that spirits do communicate, implies but 
a faint idea of the unmeasured reality that lies beneath 
this external, well-proven fact of its truth. Deep hid- 
den yet lie the realities of Spiritualism ; unmeasured, 
ungrasped, and undefined are the immortal beauties of 
the soul that the gateway of Spiritualism shall op<3n to 
human consciousness. 



34 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

How much is Reputation worth ? 

Reputation may be measured alone by the standard 
of material things. 

Almost all public writers and speakers spend a great 
many words and a great deal of time to make a fair 
and handsome presentation of their own good character 
and excellent virtues. One-half that is said and writ- 
ten is to this end. 

How much is the good opinion of a man w r orth to 
you? Take twelve and a half cents unjustly away 
from a man who holds you in the highest repute, and 
it balances his account with you. Good repute can be 
bought or sold for dollars, and generally for cents. Let 
a man once be aware that you infringe on his finan- 
cial rights, and what is his estimate of your goodness 
worth ? Nothing. Good repute does nothing for a 
man beyond dollars and cents, and very little there. 
How tenacious we are of good repute, and how lax we 
are of real merit Reputation belongs to this world, 
not to the spiritual world. It is worth as much and no 
more than is any trash of matter to the spirit. 



Who is a Medium ? 

Everybody that has a soul. Every human being is 
a medium, and every moment of earthly existence 
each one is under the immediate influence of spirits. 
All guardian spirits influence mortals through medium 
powers of their own. 

" There is not a soul however sad and lowly, but has 
some angel wings clasped around its form, — wings of 
tenderness, whereon all its emanations of hope and 
love are impressed.. Who is he that walks alone, that 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 35 

has no guardian wings about him, and never listens to 
their soft, sweet flutterings ? Every soul has a guar- 
dian one, as truly as every body has its own rays of 
light, and its own breath of atmosphere. There is not 
an unguarded one in the universe. * * * * 

Then think not, ye who are waiting and hoping for 
some celestial guardian to watch over you, that the 
earnest wish and desire will not be filled." 

Every one, the "wickedest" and the holiest, has 
medium powers sufficient for his or her own demands 
for spirit truths. The guardianship of spirits over 
every child of earth indicates the medium powers of 
all. 



Wliich is the Way that leads to Heaven ? 

There is no way in which the soul goes forth in life 
that does not lead directly to heaven. 

Not a single path on earth is trod, 
That does not lead the soul to God. 

The wayward and the wise ; the just and the unjust; 
the exalted and the lowly ; the poor and the rich ; the 
clean and the unclean ; the intelligent and the ignorant; 
the rebel and the saint — each one goes in the way the 
soul directs, and every way points to heaven, and will 
lead us all home at last, after this wearisome journey , 
of earthly life is ended. 



Is it Murder to hang a Man ? 

Just as much as it is to cut a man's throat. And if 
there is blame and responsibility attached to cutting a 
man's throat, there is blame and responsibility attached 



36 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

to hanging a man. But to neither is blame or responsi- 
bility attached, for both are the effect of spirit, the 
product of Nature's laws. Every murder is lawful to 
that state of human life that produces the murder. 
Murder is murder at any time, and in any place, and 
murder can never be produced without the existing ele- 
ment of murder, which element is always the necessary 
cause of murder. Men who support murder on the gal- 
lows are murderers as much as is the midnight assassin. 



Is it Murder to kill a Man in War ? 

Just as much murder to kill a man in war as it is to 
kill a man anywhere else, or in another way. To kill 
a man in one condition is murder just as much as it 
is to kill a man in any other condition. To take a 
man's life by force in one place, and in one condition, 
is murder just as much as it is to take a man's life by 
force in any other place and in any other condition. 
Men who go to, and support, war, are murderers, as 
much as a man is who kills another man in any con- 
dition. 



Is Ignorance the Cause of Suffering ? 
No. He who suffers most often knows the most, 
and he who suffers least knows the least. 



Is Ignorance the Cause of what we call Evil? 
No. The wickedest are often the most intelligent, 
and the holiest the most ignorant. 






Wliat makes Suffering and Sin ? 
Infinite Wisdom. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 37 

Whot are Spiritual Manifestations ? 
Every manifestation of life in the body and out, is a 
manifestation of spirit. 

Who are Dangerous Men ? 

The man who is developed to a practical acceptance 
of the all-right doctrine can be trusted in all things; 
the man who is not developed to the acceptance of 
this doctrine may be trusted in some things — not in 
all. 

The men who see the most wrong in the world — 
if any dangerous men there be — are the most danger- 
ous. 



Wliat shall destroy the Fear of Death ? 
The perception of the wisdom and power of God as 
manifested in every thing ; the power to comprehend 
the truth that all things are made in good, for good, and 
by good ; the perception of no wrong anywhere. In 
this condition the soul falls into the arms of death with- 
out fear, filled with unmeasured trust. 



Will the Doctrine of All- Right increase Immorality and 

Crime ? 

No. Those who love and commit immorality and 

crime will not yet accept this doctrine ; cannot accept 

; it ; and it is right to the condition of such that they 

should not. Those who can fully accept this doctrine 

have the power developed to see that every immoral 

and criminal act committed is as much to be avoided 

as steps taken on red-hot coals of fire. Every step 

taken in the direction of immorality and crime has 

4 



38 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

always been a step taken in darkness and as fatal to 
happiness as steps taken with naked feet on burning 
coals. The intuition that develops the truth to human 
consciousness, that whatever is, is right, develops also 
the power to see the inseparable union of immoral and 
criminal deeds with suffering. Human nature never 
burns itself willingly. Impelled by an unseen power in 
darkness, it has often been burnt — and the burning has 
been necessary, has been for good. The development 
of the all-right doctrine inevitably and forever carries the 
soul above the commission of an immoral or a crimi- 
nal act. 



TRUTH. 

Truth is law. Law is God. Truth is infinite, as 
God is. God fills all matter, all space, and all life. 
Truth does the same. Truth is everywhere ; it has 
no rival, no antagonism. Truth is complete, supreme, 
and triumphant, being everywhere made manifest, in 
darkness, in light, working out sure and inevitable 
results. Truth is an inherent and unseen property of 
all things that exist in the universe of God. 

The poor man and the rich man have equal claims 
to truth ; the learned and the ignorant are equally its 
possessors ; the wicked and the righteous, the foolish 
and the wise, each one and every one is decked, in 
spirit, with the unfading garlands of truth. Each fact 
of creation is a truth. The crude strata of the earth 
are as pregnant with truth as are the regions of blessed 
spirits ; hell is as replete with truth as heaven is. Every 
thing, animate and inanimate, exists in truth, and is 
held by stern necessity, obedient to the laws of condi- 
tion, by truth. Truth is no less partial to erring child- 
hood than it is to the rectitude of mature manhood ; it is 
as useful and as free to the infant as it is to the venerable 
old man. Truth is as constant to the condition of the 
liar as to the man of veracity ; it is impartially given to 
both. It is given the same in high and low life ; it is 
unalterable and fixed in all places and at all times. It 
is the law of God ; it is sure always, and its power is 
commensurate with the power of Deity. 



40 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

We talk of true life, and of a life that is not true. 
How can there be any life that is not true ? Is not 
every thing that exists in the great world of mind and 
matter made by God, and ever and immediately under 
the government of his laws ? Is there any thing with 
out law, and are there any laws that are not God's 
laws ? And so far as the feeble perception of man is 
able to reach out, is there any thing to be found that 
God has not made in wisdom, and also governs in 
wisdom ? Has God created any thing except in truth ? 
I can see truth in all nature ; there is not one excep- 
tion in any thing. What we call a lie, is to itself a 
truth ; it is according to the law that produced it, and 
the law of a lie is a law of nature ; it is a necessity 
of that condition of nature, that condition of darkness 
from which it had its birth. Then to that condition it 
is right, for it is an unalterable necessity, in its place. 
Darkness in the physical world is natural and neces- 
sary, and so it is in the mental and spiritual world, 
existing in matter, the same. So darkness is true in 
nature — is true in its place; it is truth as much as 
light is. The soul comes up through the physical 
world in darkness, and all that belongs to physical ex- 
istence the soul must pass, and every thing that pertains 
thereto is true to its condition therein. These truths 
in nature we perceive not when existing in the condi- 
tions of darkness. There is a point to be gained in 
the soul's progress, from which it shall view, in the light 
of its own development, all the conflicts and darkness 
it has passed as having been necessary and right, in time 
and place — true, in the ordering of a wise Providence. 
The conflicts we meet in darkness seem to us evil ; 
but could we see now, as we shall see sometime, with 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 41 

unclouded vision, the grand ultimate, the whole chain 
of cause and effect, the purposes, plans, and execution of 
Divine Wisdom, all life and its manifestations would 
be seen pregnant with truth, working out the highest 
good for all earth's children, without one single excep- 
tion. 

Truth is everywhere — in every thing. What we 
call false is only so because our darkened perceptions 
fail to discover the reality, which is truth ; and it is no 
less truth because our visions that see it false are 
clouded. All nature is unalterably true ; and all life 
and its manifestations is nature's life, and nature's 
manifestations. Groans and sighs, the recognition of 
evil, its resistance and condemnation ;. the conscious- 
ness of self-excellence, and the recognition of error and 
sin in humanity with the unmeasured consequences of 
sadness that follow ; ten thousand beliefs and anti- 
beliefs that agitate the religious and moral world ; 
misery and suffering, degradation and poverty, riches, 
prosperity, virtue, morals, and all the excellencies of 
the earth — all these are the legitimate offspring of 
nature ; nature's law runs through the whole ; this 
law is truth existing in every condition, and in all these 
varied manifestations. 

There is no life, or effect of life, good or bad, high 
or low, that is not true to the condition from which it 
has its birth ; that is not a part of the plan of God's 
creation, designed in wisdom and executed in love. 

A belief in free moral agency is a natural product of 
a degree of the soul's growth ; it is the inevitable effect 
of a certain condition of the soul-development; so is infi- 
delity; and so it is of all the various religious creeds, dog- 
I mas, and opinions. A belief in fatalism and in destiny, 
4* 



42 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

is also an effect of the same. Bigotry and self-excel- 
lence are the effects of a natural cause — are the inev- 
itable result of the soul in a certain condition of its on- 
ward and upward march of progress. All the crimes 
and wrong deeds of the earth are the manifestations of 
truth — are the inevitable effect of acting law, which 
law is nature's and which nature is God. 

All these conditions of life that produce these various 
manifestations are conditions true to themselves, and 
are exactly in their time and place — are necessary and 
inevitable. And every soul, in some way, must pass, 
each to become conscious of the truths that belong to 
each, to see that all the falsities, as we say, of each are 
made so only by the weakness of our vision. 

All hail that glorious day! when, with unclouded 
vision, humanity shall see everything that now appears 
false and deformed, a truth of God, symmetrical and 
beautiful. 



THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 

" The pursuit of man is happiness," and, to gain it, 
" no man may put off the law of God." 

Both of these passages are true ; yet some may say, 
that most men are in the pursuit of unhappiness, and 
that God's laws may be and are put off. 

My experience thus far in life has taught me that man 
pursues happiness at all times, in all places, and in all 
conditions ; and all laws are God's laws ; laws that 
may not be put off; they are inevitable, unchangeable, 
fixed, and certain. 

This complex web of life is made up of all the ave- 
nues of happiness in which men naturally run, governed 
by the law of God — law which Christ came not to de- 
stroy, and has said that not one jot or tittle of it shall 
pass away till all be fulfilled. 

Many and varied are the avenues of the soul of man 
in which he runs out to find happiness. In each he 
goes, as law directs, as the peculiar organization is de- 
veloped out of the germ of eternal life planted in each, 
tends. The unerring law of God governs, and the 
nature of the spirit-germ points the way. God sowed 
the seed of human life and governs it by his laws. 
" God rules the destinies of men." No man rules or 
governs ; yet he thinks he does. All the avenues of 
life in which the human soul wanders,in pursuit of hap- 
piness, tend to one grand ultimate — " faith in God, and 
a haven of rest." All the little streams of life, on which 



44 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 



we sail, flow into the great river of God, and the ocean 
of eternity is the destination of all. 

Each man follows his inclinations, though he may- 
think he thwarts them ; these are his pursuits of happi- 
ness ; these are the avenues in which he goes to find 
the precious boon. Each and every effort, of every one, 
tends in the direction of natural inclination, the object 
of which is happiness. We drink when thirsty, eat 
when hungry, get warm when too cold, and cold when 
too warm ; these are natural demands, and the inclina- 
tion and effort to obey them is natural too. And so it 
is in all the actions of life. We may drink too much ; 
if we do, it is but the gratification of an inclination ; 
we may eat too much, and if we do, there is a cause, 
and there is no cause outside of nature, outside of law, 
and no nature or law outside of God. We may get 
too warm, or too cold ; if we do, there still, we find, ex- 
ists in the current of nature the ever-running course 
of cause and effect ; while the life and action of the 
human heart ever pulsates for happiness. 

Every man is launched upon the stream of life ; his 
bark is shaped by his soul's capacities ; he meets ob- 
structions, adverse waves, and winds, but, cling however 
hard he will to the banks of earth, all these tend but to 
turn him into the deeper current, and he sails more 
happily and serenely on and on, to the infinite ocean 
of endless life. 

Alice Jones, that farmer's girl, brought up in a log 
house, puts on her calico dress, and her bonnet with red 
ribbons, and goes to meeting on Sunday. William 
Jones, her brother, goes a-fishing. Alice and William 
both are led in an avenue of happiness as their incli- 
nation invites. Law directs both. 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 45 

Cotton Mather preached eternal damnation of the 
human family, save a few. Murray preached universal 
salvation of the human family. Both these men were 
in the pursuit of happiness, governed each by the law 
of the peculiar organization and development of their 
spirits, each obeying their inclinations, each running in 
some avenue of the soul after happiness. 

Webster, the murderer, sought happiness in one 
avenue ; Webster, the statesman, in another ; and Web- 
ster, the dictionary-maker, in another ; each obeyed the 
bent of inclination — obeyed the law of their nature; 
each was in pursuit of happiness. 

Patrick pursues happiness in the avenue of his pipe, 
and Mrs. Patrick in storming the children and Patrick 
too. 

Mary, the amiable young woman, walks gently in 
an avenue of happiness in obeying and loving her 
parents, and Sukey, the tomboy, in disobeying and 
hating them. Flotilda is inclined to be happy in 
wearing high heels, and dressing better than the other 
girls, whose fathers are not so rich as her father, while 
the lowly Emma is inclined to be happy in appear- 
ances without attractions, without show, in humility, 
in loving everybody, and keeping God's command- 
ments, as she thinks. Each walks in an avenue of im- 
mediate happiness; neither without obedience to law. 
Lucy, the courtesan, is led in an avenue of happi- 
ness where her inclinations immediately direct, with the 
deeper longings of her soul, held for a time in check; 
and her sister Frances, the faithful wife and mother, 
in another avenue of happiness, where her inclinations 
lead. 

The man of popularity is inclined in the way of 



46 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

popularity ; he seeks happiness in that avenue ; while 
the man covered all over with scandal and scorn, hated 
and rejected by all, has no less love of happiness, and 
is no less faithful to his inclinations, is no less an ob- 
ject of the law that governs him — the law of God 
that may not be put off. 

Willie goes to school and learns his lesson ; Joe plays 
truant and goes a-gunning; Daniel goes to college, and 
Harry goes to horse races and turkey shoots. What 
makes these boys different? Inclination. And incli- 
nation ever seeks happiness ; the nature of the soul- 
germ makes them what they are, which, in its growth, 
is ever subject to law. 

A man of conscience is faithful to his inclinations, 



■ " his life is passed 






In justifying and condemning sin. ,; 



A man without a conscience is no less faithful to 
his inclinations ; he justifies or condemns no sin. It is 
pleasant to one man to proclaim his infidelity; it is 
ple;.^ant to the other man to tell him his destiny 
is eternal misery, because he don't believe as he does. 
Each of these men obeys the laws of God in nature ; 
the nature of the soul makes the cause, and law the 
effect 

j Ward Beecher follows in the wake of his 

inclinations; he pursues happiness spontane- 

Peter Mahony does the same thing in a differ- 

ition. Theodore Parker says the Church is a 

nd the Church says Theodore Parker is a de- 

m^. , J both are in the pursuit of happiness in their 

vituperations. 

Spiritualism is a humbug, say its opposers; Spiritu 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 47 

alism is beautiful, say its believers. Nothing is said 
without a cause, and that cause is in the bosom of the 
speaker — in nature. 

One says that a certain belief is debasing and in- 
jurious, and writes " eternal punishment" on it in letters 
of brim.ltone. Another says that that same belief is 
elevating and purifying, and cherishes it in the heart 
with the fondest affection. Inclination leads us to 
different avenues of happiness in which difference is 
the immediate cause of this variety of opinion. 

One man loves to get drunk ; another hates, detests, 
abhors, condemns drunkenness ; there is a cause for 
this love in one, and this hate in the other ; it is natural 
inclination seeking happiness in the avenue where 
nature directs. 

One man robs a bank, another builds a meeting- 
house ; one prays, another curses ; one grinds the poor, 
another visits them in the name of Christ, and every 
one, with no exception, seeks happiness, obedient to 
natural inclination. 

The skilful mariner steers best ; but all voyagei , on 
the sea of life are liable to be driven upon quicksands 
and rocks, by the capricious elements, by storms and 

J winds, in darkness and clouds, which no human hand 
can keep back. The law that governs cannot 1 r;*trt 

I off. The action of the soul is its reaching 6 
piness, which draws it ever upward. It is o ! 

j covering of the soul, the material body and it 

i that is torn, wounded, and injured by shipwre^ 
adversity, dislodging its material coverings, ano 
ing it sooner for freedom — for its garments of el$fifc x f9g 
beauty. 

But what are the consequences of human actions, 



48 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

for good or for evil ? In answer, I ask what are the con- 
sequences of the forces of nature ? what is the effect of 
the workings of nature's laws ? In the natural inclina- 
tions of the human soul in the pursuit of happiness, it 
heeds not, it knows not consequences. The inclinations 
of men and women are spontaneous, ever and forever ; 
a secret spring lies behind, that moves the tongue, the 
hands, the feet, and the thoughts to action. We think 
our actions are self-made, are the fruit of individual 
effort, but analysis of the operations of life will prove 
the contrary. If a man resist evil, or what is appar- 
ently evil to him, he may think it is himself that does it, 
but for this there is a natural inclination, a fresh, im- 
mediate, unseen cause, that is spontaneous ; it is the 
God-power acting, both in the man that resists evil, and 
in the man that resists not evil. 

" We do not make our thoughts ; they grow in us 
Like grains in wood ; the growth is of the skies ; 
The skies are of nature : nature is of God." 

Has nature consequences ? Only the just effect of 
law. Is there responsibility ? None above God's laws 
in nature ; nothing in nature is lost, and nothing can 
be added to it by man. 

" no soul 



Though buried in the centre of all sin, 
Is lost to God ." 

No soul is nearer, or further off from God, for God 
is everywhere. The law of gravitation makes muddy 
water run down hill; it makes pure water do the same ; 
the law of cohesion is the same in both, the laws of 
nature cannot be put off; destiny holds every drop of 
water. A drop of turbid water makes as pure vapor 



WHATEVER TS, IS RIGHT. 49 

as the glistening dewdrop makes. God's laws are 
fixed ; they permeate every avenue of space and every 
particle of matter. 

The soul of man, like the drop of water, may be 
turbid with earthy matter ; man knows no law where- 
by a drop of water may be annihilated, or injured ; its 
elements exist forever, and tend ever to a higher condi- 
tion. Mix water with the most filthy matter of earth, 
do with it what you will, and the water is unhurt, un- 
injured ; its nature tends upward ; is expansive ; it rises 

• unseen in greater magnitude, with increased power, and 

I is no less pure because it has been mixed with earth. 
It is the same with the soul ; it exists in matter ; its 
tendency is ever upward to a higher existence ; ever in- 

i creasing in purity and in power as it rises above matter. 
The soul is no less a subject of the laws of God than 
is the raindrop, or the dewdrop. God is infinite in 
his attributes, and when we can see God's power and 
wisdom in every manifestation of motion and life, ever 
tending upward to a better and higher existence, like 
little children we shall fall into the arms of trust, and in 
confidence have faith in God. When the soul has grown 

I to that condition of beauty, where it sees God in all 
nature, the ruling hand of God in all life, then it sails 
serenely on the great river of God, which is the great 

. source of happiness into which all life is tending, and 

I to which all life is flowing. 
6 



NATURE. 

Nature is both the visible and the invisible world. 
From infinite to infinite ; from unconceived nothingness 
to unmeasured reality, nature holds dominion. God is 
nature, and all that he produces is nature; outside of na- 
ture exists nothing. The toys and foibles of childhood 
are nature's possessions. The toys and foibles of man- 
hood are nature's possessions. All the beautiful cathe- 
drals, the elegant churches, the magnificent halls, the 
costly palaces, the many houses of merchandise, and 
the multitude of ships floating upon the seas, are the 
possessions of nature, are realities to physical existence; 
but all these are toys and playthings of the infant soul 
of man, and, like the foibles of childhood, will not be 
of use when the soul is grown to spirit manhood. All 
the trees that grow on the earth, we say, are the posses- 
sions of nature ; and we may say that all the things 
that are made of trees are, in their productions, of na- 
ture too ; all the treasures that lie in the bosom of the 
earth, the whole catalogue of minerals, we say, are the 
possessions of nature. And we may say that all the 
things that are made from minerals are, in their produc- 
tion, the possessions of nature too; for nature, through 
human contrivance, extends her handiwork a little fur- 
ther, and we have all the productions of art. All art 
is the lawful possession of nature. 

All things are nature, or of nature. The gewgaws 
and the tinsels of fashion, are no less the possessions 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 51 

of nature than is honest labor and useful toil ; than is 
the wild flower and the water lily. The broad road 
that leads to the destruction of material glory, is nature's 
road. The straight and narrow path that leads to ma- 
terial excellence and earthly happiness, is nature's path. 
The avenues of nature are infinite in numbers and ill 
varieties. The wayward and the erring, the virtuous 
and the just, all walk in the avenues of nature as na- 
ture directs. The intemperate man is held and guided 
by nature, and the temperate man is held and guided 
by nature no less. The courtesan is an object of na- 
ture, so is the woman of virtue. Human restraint is 
natural, and so is human indulgence. The happy man 
is made happy by nature; the man of suffering is made 
to suffer by nature. 

All the religions of the earth are the possessions of 
nature. All the creeds and beliefs that exist, and all 
opposition to creeds and beliefs that exist, are the pos- 
sessions of nature. The man who thinks that he is 
excellent and good, and expects a greater reward for 
himself from the storehouse of heaven, than he ex- 
pects for others, is an object of nature, just as much as 
the man is, who thinks that he is no better than other 
men are, and claims that all are created and guided by 
the same Father, with equal rights and privileges — 
with equal claims on heaven and eternal happiness. 

All the wars of religious opinions, all the hatred that 
flows therefrom, and all the bloodshed of nations, are 
the possessions of nature, just as much as is all the con- 
cord of human souls, all the love, the peace, the joy 
that has ever existed in the bosom of humanity. 

Nature holds humanity with a stern and inflexible 
hand ; and outside the grasp of nature is no ex- 
istence 



52 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

What is nature ? It is the manifestation of God's 
power and God's wisdom acting upon all matter and 
upon all life. Nature bears to us the evidence of un- 
measured power and of unmeasured wisdom. All the 
evidence we have of an infinite God exists in nature. 

We ask, is nature right in all her works ? And with 
an emphasis too big for human utterance, the intuition 
of the soul of man responds, yes ; and reason mast 
echo the response, for in nature's bosom is held illim- 
itable power and illimitable wisdom. All nature is 
right, for all nature is the handiwork of God; and 
there is no wrong or evil in God ; there is no wrong 
or evil in nature, and there is no place for evil except 
it be in nature or in God ; there is no place outside of 
nature for wrong or evil to exist, and thus it is a plain 
conclusion that whatever exists is right. 

Deep hidden lies the main-spring of life, the ever-act- 
ing laws of God in nature, that move with unerring 
certainty the vast and complicated machinery of all 
creation. The foolish and the wise, the young and 
the old, the good and the bad — each, one and all, are 
wheels in the mechanism of life, all in gear, all moved 
by the main-spring of spirit power, the power of na- 
ture. If we examine the mechanism of life, we shall 
see the connections, and the mighty workings of this 
unseen power. Spiritualism takes us by the hand and 
leads us to examine and understand the great and beau- 
tiful works of nature, where the hand of God is made 
visible in all things ; his wisdom, power, and munifi- 
cence, so generous and beneficent, that the heart of 
man will pulsate faith in God, while the tongue is 
silent, and cannot speak the heart's emotion. 



NATURE RULES, 

The condition of life, which makes us conscious of 
the existence of apparent evil, is necessary; so is the 
unhappiness that is the consequence of this conscious- 
ness. The perception of evil is the necessity of a con- 
dition; it belongs to a degree of the soul's progress ; it 
is the effect of an early process of the soul's growth. 
It is right, for it is a necessity. But when the soul 
shall attain a higher degree of progression, the percep- 
tion of evil will become extinct, and in its place wili 
come the very consoling, happy, heavenly thoughts and 
words, "All is right " — 

" All discord's harmony " then " understood." 

All goodness is spontaneous ; all else is fiction ; all 
evil is a fiction. All nature is good ; and in nature we 
have both day and night. Is the day better than the 
night ? Is not each a necessity ? Is not each good ? 
We have sunshine and clouds ; the clouds are neces- 
sary to give the earth rain, and rain is as necessary as 
the sunshine to make the earth bring forth her supplies, 
which are necessary for our wants. Both sunshine and 
clouds are good. 

The earth yields poisonous and nutritious plants — 
thorns and roses ; lions and lambs ; worms and butter- 
flies ; serpents and sweet singing birds. Life is every- 
where in varied forms ; on the land, in the sea, and in 
the aii* ; and man, still the work of nature's God, 
5* 



54 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

crowns the whole. All these are nature's productions, 
and if we know not the use of each, let us not say 
that nature is wrong, but rather our knowledge is 
limited. 

" The wings of Time are black and white, 
Pied with morning and with night. 
Mountain tall and ocean deep, 
Trembling balance duly keep." 

Life is made of ups and downs ; for every excess in 
nature there is a corresponding want ; if tides are high 
in one place, they are low in another; if there is a 
mountain, there is a corresponding valley ; the ex- 
tremes of winter cold have corresponding extremes of 
summer heat. In all nature there is an equipoise, an 
even balance. 

Humanity is a natural production, and in it the 
same laws hold good that govern matter in lower con- 
ditions in nature. For every splendid mansion there is 
a humble cottage ; for excess and superabundance of 
the necessary things of life, there is want and depriva- 
tion ; for excessive wealth there is excessive poverty; 
for excessive goodness, there is corresponding want of 
goodness ; there is genius and stupidity ; intelligence 
and ignorance ; there is an excess of pleasure, but 
never without a corresponding excess of pain some- 
where. The hand of justice holds the scales of human 
happiness and suffering, and they are balanced in even- 
ness. 

The same law holds good when we come to an 
individual man. A man is a microcosm, a little uni- 
verse ; he is a world in himself. God is as infinite in 
littleness, as in greatness ; as perfect in little man, as 
he is in wor ds of magnitude that swing, balanced in 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 55 

perfect order, in limitless space. The law of justice, 
the law of evenness, balances the work, the mechanism 
of the human body and the human soul. For every 
excellence in any man, there is a corresponding de- 
fect ; for every good there is a corresponding evil, so 
called, perhaps not known ; for every excess of virtue 
there is a vice, so called, it may be, latent; for every 
tear shed, there is a gem of beauty; for every pain, 
there is a fragrant flower of undying freshness, a truth 
gained ; for every sorrow, there is a joy ; for every loss, 
there is a gain. In man exist no excesses without a 
corresponding balance. Nature is a leveller, and bal- 
ances every thing; allows no exceptions ; no monopo- 
lies ; no more in an individual man than she does ih 
the whole range of her vast dominions beneath man. 
Shall man contend with nature ? No ; he cannot, for 
it is the power of God in nature that makes him what 
he is. Let nature stop her work in the vegetable king- 
dom one year, and all life on earth ceases. Let nature 
stop her work in animal life one hour, and all men are 
numbered with the dead. Let nature cease to do her 
work for one moment in the physical world, and the 
universe is chaos. 

Do not nature's laws, then, command our attention 
and our reverence ? Man is ruled by nature, and na- 
ture to man is destiny; and a distinct view of destiny 
is a revelation to man, of faith in God. 

Can a man influence or alter a law of nature ? Can 
a man, if he tries as hard as he can, make the earth 
revolve the other way, so that the sun will rise in the 
west and set in the east? or, can he stop the ebbing 
and flowing of the tide ? Can he add to or take from 
a single ray of the great sun that shines upon us? 
Can he make the attraction of gravitation stop, or an 



56 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

atom of matter cease to exist? / donH believe he can. 
Neither do I believe that there is one single law in na- 
ture anywhere, that he can influence or alter in any- 
way, or in any degree, made manifest in man. Man is 
as immediately and as perfectly under the influence of 
these laws as is the sun, the earth, and the tides. The 
nature of man's soul is progressive ; he is ever chang- 
ing ; he has intelligence and consciousness. There is 
a condition, a degree in his progression, where he 
believes that he has power above and independent of 
the power of nature ; for the more perfect development 
of his identity, or his self-hood, or, for some cause still 
hidden, we shall see this belief a necessity of a degree 
of progress — a manifestation of that degree which is 
natural. No one moment of time does the soul cease 
to move ; and onward and upward with all things is 
its course forever. And as man's consciousness be- 
comes more clear in viewing the laws of nature, he 
will sooner or later see that her work is right, bal- 
anced justly, in equity ; he will see a hand of Divine 
Intelligence made visible as he traces the working of 
this power in the steps of his soul's progress, all ulti- 
mating in his highest good. Then, and not before, as 
he reviews the past, will he see that God has purposes, 
and nature works them out, and the means to work 
out his ends are what we call good and evil, or rather 
good and evil are the effect of this work ; each one and 
both are necessary to the end. What we call evil is 
as much the effect of a means in working out the pur- 
poses of creation, the ultimate purity of man, as good 
is. When we begin to comprehend the perfect power 
of God in nature, we shall not say that aught that is 
of God is wrong, for we have faith in his perfect power, 
and say that it is right. 






WHAT APPEARS TO BE EVIL IS NOT 
EVIL. 

In taking the ground that there is no evil, spirit in 
all cases is the standard. All things in the material 
world are the product of spirit. Spirit is real and 
eternal, and is always good. The soul of man is 
man's reality. The soul is all there is of man that is 
valuable and enduring. The soul is unseen, undefined, 
and cannot be judged of by our earthly reason. Spirit- 
ual perception - — intuition alone can recognize its real 
existence. 

All that our earthly eyes see of human existence are 
effects of the soul made manifest through material 
things, and like material things these effects possess 
the properties of change and decay ; inharmony, con- 
flict, and darkness. The shadows of matter shut out 
from our spiritual vision the reality of spirit existence, 
and these shadows we call evil. As the soul grows 
out of earthly love, the shadows break away, and all 
becomes beautiful and true. 

In this earlier condition of our earthly existence, 
shadows have seemed real, and have been taken for 
actual causes, when they were really only effects. 
Spirit has seemed to be an effect, when it was really 
only the cause. The conditions of life that we call 
evil, we must pass in our progress, — we cannot avoid 
them, — and in doing this we must suffer pain. I can- 
not think that, in the earlier condition of progress, there 



58 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

is any advance without pain ; every pulsation of pro- 
gression is followed by suffering; we never seek this 
pain, so the pulsations of progress are always as in- 
voluntary to us, as are the pulsations of our hearts. 
There is an unseen Power that makes our hearts beat, 
and there is just as much, some unseen power that 
makes our souls progress. We only know of this 
power by its effects. * 

What appears to us evil, is absolutely an effect of 
soul-growth, or is so inseparably connected with soul- 
growth that the two cannot be separated. I would not 
say now, as I have in former articles, that suffering is 
the cause of soul-growth ; but I will go one step fur- 
ther into hidden realities, and say that suffering is an 
effect, and is a positive evidence of soul-development. 
The soul begins its growth clothed in a garment of ma- 
terial love, and as it grows it breaks the threads of this 
garment, one by one, and every break of every thread 
produces a pain that we must bear. It is only the 
breaking of the threads, all the threads in the garment 
of our earthly love, that makes up the whole sum of 
earthly suffering, and what we call evil is the proximate 
cause of suffering. It is the breaking up of all earthly 
love that gives the soul a new birth — a birth into 
the world of light and freedom ; a world to which it 
ever tends, and in which it first finds a real conscious- 
ness of its true existence. In our earthly existence, the 
soul is only growing in the dark womb of physical 
nature, and when earthly love is broken it has its birth 
into real life. The whole process of the utero gesta- 
tion of the soul in its earthly existence is darkness and 
conflict, out of which its own inherent powers, forced 
by the unseen laws of nature, struggle to gain its law- 









WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 59 

ful freedom. All this darkness and this conflict we 
have called evil, because pain is thereby felt. But in 
darkness we have been unable to see that all these 
things are natural and necessary — absolutely essential 
to the condition of the soul, while it exists in the dark- 
ness of the physical world. So the appearance of evil, 
when seen in the light of the new-born spirit, in the 
light of spirit reality, is recognized only as a necessary 
shadow of matter. Thus it is a reasonable conclusion, 
that what appears to us evil, is not evil, but is pos- 
itively a necessity for greater good in the wise ordering 
of the power that makes the soul's development. 



SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATION. 

The following communication from a spirit was 
given through the mediumship of Mrs. J. S. Adams, in 
March, 1855: — 

Bright fancy wooed my soul one day, and my spirit 
flew with wings ideal, and roved among the bright, the 
beautiful, the loving things that God has made. I 
gathered me roses only, and left the thorns; I only 
drank from laughing brooks ; I ranged amid the uni- 
verse of love ; I went to gather flowers and garlands, 
for fancy would not let me look on shadows ; and I 
thought within me, if there is so much beauty in the 
universe to be found, why will the eye scan o'er the 
hideous things ? If roses bloom with thorns beside 
them, why not take the roses and leave the thorns ? 
This was the language of the beautiful. 

Then reason bounded o'er the wilderness, the desert, 
the wild-wood, and, gazing around, saw nature grow in 
what seemed all confusion, flowers delicately blooming 
in unsightly soil. Still onward reason flew, while fancy 
tarried with flowers. Must reason traverse o'er these 
wilds alone ? Will fancy not come forth and chant 
some melting cadence, and crown the brow of reason 
with roses ? 

My soul with reason flew, and with philosophy I 
traversed the desert and the wilderness, and found 
strange beauties that fancy's eye had not discovered. 
I saw within the thorn wlvdt made the rose so sweet. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 61 

I saw why shadows came embracing moonbeams. 1 
saw why bright and mossy vines clung over old, decay- 
ing wood. Where fancy failed to go, wisdom led me 
forth, and in my spirit chimed, "All, all is beautiful." 

Then sympathy and love came forth, and I saw tears 
and sorrow and sighing; then fancy whispered within 
my soul, " This is not bright and beautiful." Then wis- 
dom came, and fancy fled. A brilliant star upon her 
brow threw light upon the scene, and I saw why sorrow 
and sadness were around me. It was a key-note in 
God's great harmony of creation to lead my spirit forth 
in love, affection, and sympathy. For what were these 
faculties lodging within me ? Were they not to go 
forth when sorrow was sighing ? And with wisdom I 
saw that this was also beautiful. 

I saw a dark and hideous form borne to the spirit- 
world. He came in loneliness and in sorrow. I looked 
again ; there came a bright and beauteous form to join 
a seraph host above. There were pearl-drops glittering 
round her brow, made of the tears of affection. I 
gazed upon them long, and all that was beautiful and 
bright and lovely within my soul, drew no thought to 
the heaven-born host, where the new-born spirit had 
joined ; while sympathy, tenderness, and compassion 
drew my spirit-thoughts to the sad, dejected form that 
was borne to the spirit-world. Fancy said, let us join 
the shining host ; but wisdom prompting, spoke within 
my soul, and bade me seek the weary, the downcast, 
the sad one. And I saw from the light of the golden 
stars that all in this was beautiful and bright ; that the 
shining host above drew out my finer throes. My 
spirit melted with deep love, and joined the sad one's 
woes, and there was beauty, heavenly beauty, in the 
6 



62 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 






thought that I could aid that saddened form, and some 
day see him join that beauteous choir, that throng of 
light to which that spirit from the same earth has gone. 
The one departed from out the garden of flowers, the 
other came forth from briers and thorns. And the rose 
and the thorn were all made beautiful. I had learned 
a lesson of life. And I said within my soul, O God, 
there is naught but harmony, and a bright and circular 
gradation of beauty that winds to thy central glory. 



CAUSE OF WHAT WE CALL EVIL. 

" Men speculate on right and wrong 
As upon day and night, forgetting both 
Have but one cause, and that the same — God's will." 

What is evil ? Evil may be defined as being those 
manifestations of life that are repulsive to the heavenly- 
desires of the human heart. What is the cause of so- 
called evil ? In one word this question may be an- 
swered, viz., nature. Without reserve, boldly and fear- 
lessly, I solemnly give in my testimony, and swear, that 
evil is a natural production. The operations of nature 
gave birth to it, and it rises up from the workings of 
her mighty machinery, and, like vapor, dissipates. Na- 
ture produces every thing that we call evil, no less than 
that we call good. 

" God shows his face to us no less in darkness 
Than in the light." 

It would be childish to say that behind the blow that 
murdered a man there was not a cause, the effect of 
which was the blow, and the consequence the murder. 
Nature has hidden springs. There lies a brain of pe- 
culiar organization behind the hand that gave the blow, 
which produced the murder. That brain was made by 
nature. Unseen currents of vitality run through that 
brain, and nature gives these currents, and makes them 
flow. We cannot see them ; they stimulate the brain, 
and the brain acts as servant to these currents, accord- 



64 WHATEVER JS, IS RIGHT. 

ing to its organization, formation, and capacity. These 
currents of life come into the brain, and run down 
through the feet and hands of the murderer ; and they 
are servants too. They use the feet to carry the mur- 
derer to the scene of murder, and the hands to do the 
deed. And the man we call a free moral agent, kills 
another man that we call a free moral agent. This 
deed we call evil. What is the cause ? Nature. 
What is nature ? God. And is nature wrong ? Is 
God, the great main-spring of nature, wicked ? Is 
there that in nature which needs remedial agents, to 
be administered by the feeble hand of man ? The de- 
sires of men, and the inclinations of men — from whence 
come they ? From God, direct and immediate. Every 
desire of the human heart runs as natural and as true 
to the laws of God in nature, as the stream of water 
runs obedient to the laws of God in gravitation — 
sometimes turbid, in darkness, and in miry places, and 
sometimes in sunshine and in crystal purity, over clean 
sand and pebbles. The little rivulet has its origin in 
nature — it is moved by nature — its windings, and 
its gurglings, its foamings and its splashings, are all 
the effects of natural laws. Dam it up, and by the 
laws of nature it rises above the obstruction and flows 
on ; it mingles with other waters, and still obedient to 
the laws of nature, it flows on and on, and is lost in 
the ocean of its destination. 

The human soul is like a stream of time. It gov- 
erns itself no more than does the little rivulet of the 
earth ; but like it, it is held perfectly obedient to un- 
seen laws. The hand of destiny holds the rivulet, and 
the hand of destiny holds the souls of men. The 
stream goes zigzag ; man is wayward, and goes zig- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 65 

zag. It bears bubbles on its surface and they break ; 
human life has bubbles, and they break. The stream 
dashes furiously over the precipice, and moves faster 
on its course in consequence of its foaming, dashing 
fury ; the peaceful course of human life is thus broken, 
by what we call these damning evils ; the waters of 
life are thereby agitated, not injured ; stagnation is ar- 
rested, and progression is accelerated thereby ; it moves 
more rapidly on to its destination in consequence of 
the moral falls which break its peaceful flow. Then 
the stream flows calm and tranquil, peacefully and 
beautifully ; so the course of human life is sometimes 
calm, tranquil, peaceful, and beautiful. This is " good," 
we say ; this is " holiness and righteousness," we say. 
But in this peaceful flow the soul moves more slowly 
on to its destination of eternal beauty ; its earthly 
windings are lengthened, and its heaven is later 
reached. 

" Evil " is the rapid fall in the stream of time ; good 
is its peaceful flow. Evil shortens our earthly love ; 
good lengthens it. The stream of life flows on unbid- 
den and ungoverned by man, but it flows in obedience 
to the laws of God in nature. 

What is the cause of what we call evil ? Was an 
evil deed ever committed without a cause of sufficient 
power to produce the deed? No philosopher can 
answer, yes. Then where lies the cause, and where 
had it its origin ? We say, in yielding to temptation ; 
in some deed of evil that has preceded. Go back an- 
other step — where had that temptation, and the yield- 
ing to it, an origin? and keep going back, step by step, 
and at last we must conclude that every cause lies far 
back in the bosom of God. 
6* 



66 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

The cause of " evil" lies beyond the reach of human 
vision as developed in the sensuous world; far beyond 
the boundaries of human philosophies. In the bosom 
of intuition we shall find it. 









EVIL DOES NOT EXIST. 

° There's not a place on earth's vast round, 
In ocean deep, or air, 
Where skill and wisdom are not found, 
For God is everywhere. 

" Around, beneath, below, above — 
Wherever space extends, 
There Heaven displays its boundless love, 
And power with goodness blends." 

That which seems to us evil, is not evil intrinsically ; 
it is only the natural operation of things for the pro- 
duction of good. Evil is the effect of a means, whose 
end is as great in goodness as is the magnitude of the 
apparent evil. 

The reason why we call certain actions evil, is be- 
cause we know no better ; is because we have not a 
capacity to see, comprehend, and understand the wis- 
dom of God in the mighty workings of his power. 
No one can deny that there is an unseen power and 
an unseen wisdom at work in the manifestations of 
life, that we see everywhere around us. This wisdom 
and this power transcends human wisdom and human 
power, as the magnitude of uncounted worlds tran- 
scends the magnitude of a single man. Has finite 
man confidence in this power and this wisdom ? We 
say that God is infinite in these attributes. Have we 
faith in his infinite power and wisdom ? Have we 
faith in God ? If we have, we feel safe, perfectly safe ; 



68 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

we are happy ; we have found a heaven of rest. We 
see what is apparently wrong, and conclude that it is 
for wise ends ; for it is all the work of this Infinite 
Wisdom and Infinite Power. We are little ; God is 
great. We cannot see his mighty purposes, his 
schemes and plans ; we cannot understand by view- 
ing a single link, or many links, in the interminable 
chain of cause and effect, for what purpose the whole 
long chain is to be used. If we have perfect con- 
fidence in God, we love him through all his works ; no 
less in what seems to us evil, than in what seems to us 
good. 

The firemen blow up a house to prevent the spread 
of a terrible conflagration in a densely populated city ; 
the deed is executed in the higher wisdom of larger 
human intelligence. Smaller intelligence that could 
not see the wisdom of the deed and knew not for what 
end it was done, might think this blowing up of a 
house, voluntarily and purposely, an evil, while the 
end was really for good. 

A wise physician draws out the deadly inflammation 
from the vital organs of his patient upon the skin by a 
blister, and he sees in this lesser evil a means of greater 
good; while the unintelligent, the uninformed sees 
this terrible inflammation, this awful blister that the 
doctor has made, and without hesitation pronounces it 
an evil. The blister works out good in the end. 

The boy, under the lash of his father's correction, 
never thinks that whipping is the best thing his father 
can do for him ; the whipping, he thinks, is a cruel 
evil ; he knows less than his father does ; he sees that 
an evil which his father sees a good. 

A failure in a successful business often brings out 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 69 

the hue man; it is the best thing that can happen. 
But you cannot make a man believe this, till he grows 
large in spirit, and can see it ; he thinks that it is the 
Devil that causes the failure, and the failure is an evil ; 
when perhaps it has been planned and executed by his 
redeeming angels, to lead hiin more rapidly on his 
journey of progression. 

Thus it is in some of the little things of life that to 
ignorance appear evil, in the light of intelligence ap- 
pear wise and good. 

I feel an abiding confidence that, when we shall 
grow pure in heart, we shall see God in the light of 
truth, in good no less than in evil ; and we shall see 
all the works of God as having been planned and ex- 
ecuted in wisdom, for the highest good of all men. 



UNHAPPINESS IS NECESSARY. 

Unhappiness is the product of soul development, 
and is always in its time and place ; it is a lawful ef- 
fect of the souPs growth, and in no possible contin- 
gency, by material efforts, can it be lessened or avoided. 
Unhappiness is just as right as happiness is. And if 
unhappiness is right, the cause that produced it must 
also be right, which cause we have called evil. We 
always seek happiness and try to avoid unhappiness ; 
but our efforts to influence the growth of the soul that 
produces these effects, are futile ever. Our efforts affect 
our material existence — not the soul's existence. Our 
happiness and our unhappiness are always the effect 
of the sure laws of God, in nature, acting upon our 
souls. It is a hand of love that holds the cup of bit- 
terness to our lips, no less than it is a hand of love 
that fills our cup of joy to overflowing. And blessed 
be that hand which gives us both pain and joy. Both 
are right. 

When we suffer pain, it is hard for us to see a hand 
of goodness in its ministration ; but by careful reflec- 
tion we sometime shall see that pain has always been 
for good ; and when we see this, then, if we could, we 
would not take it back. How many afflictions of our 
past lives can we recount already, and see that in each 
has been a means that has benefited the soul. And 
we have powers, but feebly developed yet, to read the 
anatnmy of cause and effect in the chain of human 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 71 

ife, and less have we powers developed to read and 
understand the physiology of soul progress, the func- 
tions of every cause and effect, and the mysterious 
sympathy that runs through the whole. 

Disease is the result of a means of the souPs growth. 
It is as natural to a certain condition of life as health 
is, and to that condition in which it exists it is neces- 
sary and inevitable ; it is lawful and right. The pain- 
ful influences of poison are natural, necessary, and 
inevitable to that condition, where we say that igno- 
rance makes its influences a blind accident. There is 
no accident in nature, and all that is, is nature. 

Murder has no influence upon the soul ; it is a thing 
of the material world in its influences. It has no 
influence upon spiritual existence of which it is an 
effect. When the murderer kills his brother, he strikes 
a blow that will paralyze every love of his own earthly 
existence. Then the affections of his soul must cling 
to something ; and if his love of earth becomes broken 
by the awful deed of murder, and the consequent pun- 
ishment that he meets, spiritual things are next grasped, 
and perhaps sooner grasped for the commission of the 
deed. The murderer does his deeds in darkness ; 
he does not commit the deed with a view to advance 
the progress of his soul. He is moved by an unseen 
and irresistible power to commit what seems to us the 
u evil" deed. Every murder that ever was committed 
has been inevitable ; in the bosom of nature has ex- 
isted the lawful cause, of which murder has been the 
effect. The causes of nature and the effects of nature 
are always right. 

Now, reader, do not go away and ?ay that this book 



72 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT, 

recommends murder. It only talks about murder as 
it is, and of all other " evils " as they are. 

Theft and robbery are effects of a cause ; the effects 
are in the material world, the causes in the spiritual 
world. Stealing is the work of nature too, in humanity, 
and it will exist as long as the condition exists in na- 
ture, of which it is a necessity. Stealing is right to its 
condition, and, in that condition, by the inflexible 
power of nature's laws, it must exist; therefore, it is 
right. All efforts made against the crime of stealing 
are also right. 

Intemperance, debauchery, and degradation never 
have had existence without a cause to produce them. 
Nature is their father and mother. 

Thorns and thistles, poisonous plants, and poisonous 
animals, are no less the productions of nature than are 
fragrant flowers, nutritious vegetables, and useful ani- 
mals. 

So are the actions of men and women that we call 
evil the product of nature, as much as are the actions 
that we call good. Is nature wrong ? No ; for all 
the manifestations of nature are the manifestations of 
God. God is good — not evil. I would not try to 
push away the hand of love that holds me. Then, 

" Press close bare-bosomed night ! 
Press close magnet nourishing night. 

All crime is rewarded with suffering ; " the wages of 
sin is death," pain, and misery ; and sin, pain, and mis- 
ery are means to free the soul. Thus it is that crime 
becomes a fruitful means of good, and we see — 

" Discord is harmony not understood." 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 73 

In a higher condition of human life there is no ciime, 
and to this condition humanity rises only by pain and 
suffering. 

The hungry man suffers ; but the sufferings of hun- 
ger are waves of progress that shall enable the soul 
sooner to feed on those drops of eternal wisdom, which 
shall nourish it forever. 

The toiling slave suffers ; but the sufferings of a toil- 
some life are breaking the fetters of earthly love, where- 
by the soul shall be sooner set free to wander u at its 
own sweet pleasure," in the 

" Gardens where angels walk, and seraphs are the wardens." 

The widows and the orphans suffer; but God and 
angels love them, and administer suffering to them to 
earlier prepare them for the full company of congenial 
souls, where there shall be no more death, no sighs, no 
sorrows, no unsatisfied desires. It is progression 
through suffering that shall make widows and orphans 
angels ; and so it is of all earth's children. 

That young woman suffers who makes the rich man's 
shirts ; who, by constant toil all day and half the night, 
is scarcely able to feed her sickly mother and herself, 
and wear the cheapest fabric for her clothes. The mid- 
night lamp reflects the hectic flush, her aching, tired 
shoulders — these in silence proclaim her suffering. 
Every pain she bears cuts asunder a thread of love 
that binds her soul to earth, and it shall mount on 
wings of spirit-love, to soar away in freedom, sooner 
for her suffering. 

And thus it is with all the sufferings of human souls. 
Suffering is incident to every place and every condition 
of the earth. 

7 



74 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT, 

Humanity progresses ever, but never without pain and 
conflict. Shall I curse the means that work out my great- 
est good? Shall I denounce and resist evil when it 
brings suffering, which suffering must be identified with 
my progression ? 

Evil is held in check, or is dealt out to humanity by a 
hand of wisdom and power. Evil comes not by hu- 
man will, or by human effort. No man suffers by his 
own desires ; no man is happy at his own pleasure. 
No human effort can stay or advance the tide of evil 
that flows over humanity ; it is God-given and God- 
directed. God is good, and doeth all things well. I 
thank God for human progress ; I thank God for the 
proximate cause of human progress, which is suffering; 
and I thank God for the cause of suffering, which is 
sin. 

The elements of drunkenness, of prostitution, of 
murder, and of crime exist in the world on the existing 
plane of human progress ; and while these elements 
hold a place in humanity, their manifestations in the 
great work of human life are inevitable. 

It is folly to say that these evils are enhanced or 
diminished by all that may be said or written on the 
subjects pertaining to them. A careful review of the 
history of the past shows that the world has been 
flooded with preaching and talking against all kinds 
of evil, while they still, unmitigated, keep on untouched, 
uninfluenced. 

Let no one think that this article advocates drunken- 
ness, prostitution, crime, or oppression. It has nothing 
to do with increasing or diminishing these so-called 
evils, nor is it possible for it to have any effect in either 
direction. The elements of evil are integral parts in 



WHATEVER IS, TS RIGHT. 75 

the material and early existence of the human sou' ; 
and evil made manifest is the natural operation of the 
soul's progression. The progression of man is the 
great purpose of life, and all the manifestations of life 
are the effect of means working to this end. So every 
thing that we call wrong and evil is absolutely good. 



HARMONY AND INHARMONY. 

* 

So long as the phantom Evil is seen, its condem- 
nation is inevitable ; and so long as the shadows of 
earthly love linger in the soul, so long this phantom 
called Evil is visible. Opposition is an enemy to peace, 
and condemnation is the fruit of opposition. In a con- 
dition of perfect peace there is no opposition to any 
thing that exists. The soul that is in harmony with 
every thing, sees every thing as being right, and nothing 
as being wrong, or evil. It is the soul of inharmony 
that sees almost every thing as being wrong ; and it is 
the condition of the soul that sees inharmony, that is 
inharmonious ; the things seen outside the soul that 
sees them are only seen to be evil, they are not really 
so. So the condemnation of an evil is only a chastise- 
ment for the soul's self that condemns. 

The soul grows up through the inharmony and the 
darkness of materialism, and, while it is thus growing, 
it sees and condemns evil. As the soul grows to rec 
ognize the reality of spirit, as it ever will more and 
more, the shadow called Evil lessens, and finally, in the 
undimned light of the spirit, it sees no evil. 

Medium developments are spiritual unfoldings in 
the soul; an increasing recognition of spiritual reali- 
ties ; a constantly increasing harmony of the soul with 
all conditions and all things in existence. The best 
and the truest medium for the reception and transmis- 
sion of spirituai truths, is the medium who is in perfect 



:: 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 77 

harmony with all things — who sees no evil, no wrong, 
and has no opposition, no condemnation for any thing 
that exists. Such a medium, in a perfectly normal 
condition, can talk with angels face to face — can read 
human hearts without the aid of words — can com- 
mand any truth from the spiritual universe that it has 
a desire to command ; that it has a capacity to re- 
ceive. 

Peter J. Ballard, of Marblehead, when entranced, or 
under the control of spirits, made medium develop- 
ments to consist of seven classes, corresponding with 
the seven notes which make the octave in music, and 
from which the different sounds that make all the mel- 
ody in music proceed. Every person on earth is a me- 
dium, and is in some one of these seven classes of me- 
dium development. The average development of the 
human family, is between the first and second, is in 
the second. Each class of medium developments is 
characterized by certain manifestations peculiar to it- 
self. And every class is characterized by an absence 
of perfect harmony, until the seventh is fully devel- 
oped. When the soul has passed this last develop- 
ment, it has made the octave in which harmony exists, 
and the soul is thereby tuned to melody ; it is then 
in harmony with all life and all its manifestations. 
There can be no discord, no inharmony, no evil to the 
perfect development of these seven classes of medium- 
ship. 

This classification of medium development serves at 
least to convey some idea of the growth of the soul 
into a harmonious and melodious development. To 
play the tune of life harmoniously, and sing the theme 
of life melodiously, we must first have exercise on all 
7* 



78 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

the notes in the octave, and thereby gain the mastery 
of the various sounds. In this exercise there must be 
discord and inharmony, but when each note upon the 
music-staff of life is mastered, the melody of life be- 
gins, and in harmony we chant 

" Whatever is, is right. " 
" All is beautiful that beauty 



THE SOUL'S PROGRESS. 

The soul's progress is and has been the great sub- 
ject of all recognized religions throughout the world. 

The aim of all religions is to make the actions of 
life good and excellent while the soul inhabits its tene- 
ment of clay ; believing that by so doing the soul is 
made better ; is better prepared for its existence 
after death. The ground, I believe, has always been 
taken, that the soul has been influenced for good or for 
evil by contact with men and things ; that by bad in- 
fluences it is degraded and retarded in its progress, and 
by good influences it is advanced and elevated. Such 
is the doctrine of all desires that bear the name of 
" religion" All doctrines I fully accept as being neces- 
sary effects of the soul's progress, no doctrine or belief 
being wrong to the cause that produced it. But all 
doctrines being manifested through matter, are, like all 
matter, changeable and perishing. 

We have honestly and necessarily thought that the 
soul has been influenced by doctrines, and can be. 
But we have claimed, at the same time, that the soul is 
of eternity, which time cannot obliterate or destroy. 
If it is, how can it be influenced by that which changes 
and perishes? I cannot see, if the soul is immortal, 
how things that are not immortal can have any influ- 
ence upon it — how its effects, which are perishing, 
can in any possible way influence its progress, which 
is eternal. If the soul is unseen and eternal, then that 



80 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

which is unseen and eternal alone must influence it, 
and be the cause of its progress. If the soul can be 
influenced by doctrines and beliefs ; by " wrong and 
evil ; " by human actions ; by the manifestations of 
human life in matter, all of which are ephemeral, 
"passing away, passing away " — then, like that which 
influences it, it must be ephemeral, not immortal. 

By no human action is the soul made better or 
worse; by no human voice or hand is the soul ad- 
vanced or retarded in its eternal progress ; no deed of 
human life can stay its upward march or help it on. 
Too mighty, too eternal is the soul, to be influenced 
by things of time ; by doctrines, beliefs, preaching, or 
writing; by the friction of matter, its rise or fall, its 
riches or poverties, its glory or its degradation. The 
human soul ! the immortal, beautiful soul ! Triumph- 
ant over death and hell, it must rise ; and surely, over 
all the fleeting things of earth also, it must rise, tri- 
umphant — seed of eternal life, planted by the finger 
of God in his own garden, to bloom in unfading fresh- 
ness forever ! 

What is the cause and effect of the progress of the 
human soul ? No human tongue can answer this ques- 
tion, for the answer would cover a knowledge of the 
limitless area of infinity. There is no beginning, there 
is no end, to the philosophy of the soul's growth ; no 
man knows the port from whence it started, nor the 
haven to which it is destined. 

The soul had its creation in unconsciousness ; it 
wakes up in its progress; it but dimly discerns the fact 
of its existence at first ; the shadows of matter and 
the clouds of earth protect for a while its young and 
tender perception from the dazzling realities of its un- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 81 

measured glories. Time strengthens its vision ; cl >uds 
and shadows disappear as it strengthens ; and a con- 
scious perception of its own immortality opens upon 
its deep and ardent longings in the light of spiritual 
realities. 

Our perceptions of the reality of the soul, and its 
eternal relations, are exceedingly limited, because our 
vision is yet unopened ; we are yet almost shrouded in 
the darkness of matter, with its changing, perishing 
philosophies. Gleams of spirit-light, soul-light, now 
and then, in pencil rays, shine from within us. We 
comprehend but faintly the glorious reality. As we 
pass from feeble spirit-infancy, to stronger spirit-child- 
hood, and then to stronger spirit-manhood, we grow to 
bear the increasing beauty and effulgence of spiritual 
light. Some time, we shall intuitively know a new 
philosophy, that, on the wings of desire, shall leap to 
catch and hold forever the truths of God. This shall 
be the philosophy of the soul. 

I have a powerful and abiding conviction that our 
wildest and most extravagant conceptions of the yet 
unspoken beauties of the human soul are infinitely 
small when compared with the magnitude of its reality. 
And to philosophize upon that which we know but 
ittle of, which we have not seen, and which our con- 
ceptions have even failed to reach, is impossible to do 
with any degree of perfectness. But with what little 
light of immortality our souls, by natural growth, have 
caught, we have a right, in the baby-house of our spirit- 
ual existence, to philosophize as babies do, with a baby- 
house philosophy, which philosophy is of the material 
World. 

There, surely, is some power that has created the 



82 WHATEVER IS ? TS RIGHT. 

soul; and as surely there must be some power that 
guides the soul. This power is before and above the 
soul's vc.ition, beyond the soul's control. 

We did not command the creation of our souls, nor 
do we control the power that created them ; and no 
more can we command or control the same power — the 
power which makes them grow. The soul and all its 
forces are beyond and above all the influences of time, 
and the powers of the material world. 

We have confidence that, in the ordering of Infinite 
Wisdom, the soul is necessarily planted in matter to 
begin its growth in darkness and in conflict — there to 
grow, and to bud, and then to blossom in the sunshine 
of heaven. How this is, the whys and the wherefores, 
the cause and the effect, lies far beyond the present de- 
velopment of our senses. 

Our thoughts run out on spirit-life as gleams of 
spirit-truth shine in ; and gleams of spirit-truth shine 
in our souls (or out), as the soul by its natural growth, 
breaks the earthly covering in which it germinates. 

The beauty of the material world is one beauty ; 
the beauty of the spiritual world is another beauty. 
The growth of the spirit breaks the beauty of the ma- 
terial. The nut-shell is beautiful, but it holds a germ 
of life within that is more beautiful. Hidden forces 
make that germ expand; this expansion breaks the 
shell and spoils it ; and from this germ new life 
springs forth; the germ grows to buds and flowers, 
and their emanations of fragrance and beauty go up 
to live forever. In this process is struggle, antago- 
nism, opposition and conflict in darkness ; all this is 
done by a power that is a miracle to humanity ; we 
know nothing of the first cause and of the final effect. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 83 

By the same unseen power and wisdom the soul is 
produced and covered in the material shell of earthly 
love to protect the germ for a time. But when it 
grows, it breaks the shell of material love ; makes it 
look bad ; spoils it. Human actions that we call 
wrong, evil, devilish, only produce the cracks and 
breaks of this shell. The soul that germinates earli- 
est and with the greatest vigor, is in the man who 
looks the worst, and acts the worst, to the eyes of the 
material world. The man who is most perfect and 
beautiful in the material world, loves earth the most. 
The man who is most broken and deformed in the 
material w T orld, loves earth the least. In the latter the 
germination and growth of the soul within has burst 

1 the covering of his earthly love ; this man, we say, " is 
religiously and morally bad; is on a very low plane;" 
while, in the former, the germination and growth of 

! the soul within is a little later, and has not yet broken 
a fibre of the coverings of material beauty. This man, 
we say, " is religiously and morally good ; his soul is 
progressed up very high." The growth of the soul af- 
fects the things of this world ; but the things of this 

■ world cannot, in any possible way, affect the growth 
of the soul. All that makes the soul grow is an un- 
seen power that yet lies behind the curtain of our 
vision, over which our will and our hands can have no 

! influence. 

We wait for that day to dawn upon us when the 
curtain of darkness will rise, and we shall see all things 
in intuitive soul-light, existing in truth and beauty. 
Then we shall review the past, and see that 

" All nature flows in rapturous lay, 
Life beams in one eternal ray/' 



INTUITION. 

Intuition alone is the basis on which is reared the 
superstructure of a positive knowledge of immortality 
Intuition is the literature and the science of the soul; 
it is the philosophy and the logic of the spirit ; it is the 
Bible of God, in which the soul of man alone can read 
the truths of eternal life. Intuition is conscious exist- 
ence ; it is thought, feeling, and desire. All human 
intelligence is the production of intuition ; all the 
knowledge of the material world is the offal of intui- 
tion. 

I desire immortality, and in that desire I have the 
intuitive evidence of immortality. I desire, to com- 
mune with angels, and in that desire I have the in- 
tuitive evidence of the existence of angels ; in that 
desire I do absolutely commune with them. We long 
and desire to grasp the unseen beauties of spirit-life, 
and in this longing is the absolute beginning of the 
possession of what the soul longs for ; in this longing 
exists the intuitive preception of the reality. 

" I want to talk with my mother," said a young man 
to me, twenty times in the course of an hour's conver- 
sation. (His mother was dead, and he loved her.) 
This young man did not, in an external sense, recog- 
nize the fact that the spontaneous desire of his soul to 
talk with his mother, was absolute communion with his 
mother, by the positive power of intuition. 

" Oh, if I could get a communication from my angel 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 85 

sister!" said MaryB . Let Mary's fleeting percep- 
tion of material things grow dim, and with the percep- 
tion of her soul she will see that in her ardent soul- 
desires she holds positive communion with her angel 
sister; with the yet unrecognized power of intuition, 
she talks with her angel sister, in soul. 

Everybody is intuitive. Each spontaneous thought 
of the soul is of intuition. Each spontaneous feeling 
of the soul is of intuition. I cannot but believe 
that the sight of angels and spirits is only the inten- 
sified feeling of their presence, and this feeling is in- 
tuition. 

Every real Spiritualist is a Spiritualist alone from 
intuition, not from external evidence. Philosophy 
never made a Spiritualist, and never will. 

The men and women who deal largely with science 
and philosophies are the last to recognize intuition ; 
they call it fiction, and Spiritualism they call the same. 
They deal only with the product of reality, with the 
trash of matter, and its no less trashy philosophies, that 
are tangible to physical eyes and physical touch, wait- 
ing a while for the recognition of the unseen spirit, and 
its beautiful intuitions, that produce what they recog- 
nize. 

Language cannot define the word intuition. The 
most that can be said, in an attempt to define it, can 
convey but a faint idea of its reality. We may say 
that intuition is a conscious perception of truth that is 
perfectly spontaneous. Intuition is a persuasion of truth 
developed from the soul, and forever has an abiding 
place there. Intuition never comes from without into 
the soul, but is developed from the germ of the soul 
and comes out. 



86 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

Tt is intuition alone that can take cognizance of the 
positive indestructibility of the soul ; that can grasp 
the fact of the soul's immortality. 

It is intuition that recognizes the triumphant power 
which the soul possesses over all the influences of the 
material world. 

It is intuition that sees the cause of all material ex- 
istence, in spirit ; that sees spirit alone as the real 
thing of all life. 

It is intuition that brings to the soul's consciousness 
the unutterable beauties that lie in the pathway of its 
future, eternal progression. 

It is intuition that gives the soul a passport to the 
illimitable fountain of all truth ; that opens the gates 
of heaven, and shuts the gates of hell. 

It is intuition that produces philosophies, and buries 
philosophies with the affections of earthly things ; that 
makes death a pieasant incident, and all life redolent 
with beauty. 

It is intuition that makes us good and true, trust- 
worthy and useful ; that develops the stature of true 
manhood, and makes us what we all are to be — good 
men and good women in practical deeds, without the 
trash of external pretence. Philosophies build up pre- 
tences, and intuition tears them down. 

It may be asked, by what authority thoughts have 
been uttered that seem so opposite to the teachings of 
the past. This authority is not gleaned from books or 
any preaching, nor any human philosophies or teach- 
ing ; but it is the deep and honest convictions of soul. 
You ask from whence these convictions come ? The 
answer is, they come on the wings of intuition. By 
intuition we may read the real character of human 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 87 

operations — of men and women ; and see the beauti- 
ful cause of all the manifestations of life in the physi- 
cal world, and in that cause see the finger of Infinite 
Goodness in every thing. It is in this way that we 
shall fail to discover evil as a thing of existence. 

It is intuition alone that shall make clear to us the 
saying, that " Whatever is, is right." Intuition deals 
with spirit; philosophy deals with matter. Intuition 
exists with causes ; philosophy with effects. Intuition 
is the sunlight of truth, that shall endure throughout 
the daytime of eternal existence ; philosophy is the 
shadow of matter, that shall pass away and be lost in 
the light of spiritual realities. 



RELIGION— WHAT IS IT? 

It is the use of a word that gives to us its mean- 
ing. From the common walks of every-day practical 
life I have gathered the meaning of the word relig- 
ion; not from the dictionary, the commentary, or from 
the pulpit. 

Feel the pulse of the throbbing hearts of humanity, 
and decide whether the following definition of religion 
is not practically true. 

Religion is a longing for something not possessed, 
always accompanied with an effort to satisfy that long- 
ing. Religion consists in unsatisfied desires, by which 
desires we are influenced to actions which may answer 
the ends of these desires. 

What is the religion of human life ? It is simply 
the desires of human life. What are the desires of 
human life ? The desires of human life, without one 
single exception, are for happiness. All men love hap- 
piness, and all men seek it. Every human being has 
desires ; each one has desires peculiar to him or her- 
self ; and every desire, for the person that desires, is 
for good, for greater good. A human step is never 
taken that is not signally to this end in its intention ; 
and we may not say that it will not be in its results. 

Every human soal longs for something not yet pos- 
sessed; and this longing is always joined with the 
effort to satisfy this longing. No one longs for pain, 
for misery and suffering, but always for good, for plea- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 89 

sure, for happiness. This is religion ; and it is pos- 
sessed by one no less than by another. 

Every human being is moved by natural religion, is 
governed by natural religion, is obedient to natural in- 
clinations — the source of which is good, the desire of 
which is for good, and the end of which, we have con 
fidence, must be good. 

Our desires lead us through many dark avenues, 
and the gods of our hearts are sometimes daily 
changed. Our desires are the gods we worship. Old 
gods are vanquished as new ones come up. All the 
avenues of earth lead us to good in the end. There 
are no vain pathways in the journey of life ; all 
the pathways through which our desires lead us are 
useful to us, are necessary for us ; through them we 
pass, redeemed, to bliss. Darkness makes the habili- 
ments of mourning; but, as sure as the night is, so sure 
is the day to follow. Our religion is God-given, and 
is for a God-purpose alw T ays ; and we make the sun 
rise and set no more than we make our religion, our 
suffering, and our happiness. 

There is not a soul on earth that loves not power, 
and that does not desire it. This desire is religion. 
Power kills pain and commands happiness. 

" Who would not lift the world with a lever of light '%" 

i Helen says — 
" Oh, I could stand and rend myself with rage 
To think I am so weak, * * * 
"While I would be a hand, to sweep from end 
To end, from infinite to infinite. " 

] This wild desire is Helen's religion ; and every desire 
that is not this, is religion ; for every one 

8* 

( 



90 WHATEVER IS, TS RIGHT. 

" Desires that which is most natural." 

"Earth hath her deserts mixed with fruitful plains. " 

And on we go, on to future joys and sorrows, while 
the past is laid in ruins. The enjoyment of, and 
thai.ksgiving for every thing that has passed, is the 
fruition of religion ; and this has come, or will come. 
Every desire is a grand prediction of good to come. 
Religion is the surest evidence of future happiness, for 
its demands are always means never too short to reach 
its ends. 

" Words are but motes of thoughts.' 7 

Professions are dead cinders of soul-desires of true 
religion. Religion is not gained by toil; it comes 
from God — immediate, direct. Desires are not made 
by us ; they grow in us like leaves on trees. Desires 
are spontaneous ; religion is always spontaneous. Re- 
ligion runs through human hearts like streams of water 
through woods and fruitful plains, and by their run- 
ning make their own channels. The running water 
finds its level by a law of unseen power, defying si- 
lently all the dams and forcing-pumps of earth. So 
religion runs, moved by a silent power, in defiance of 
all the forcing-pumps and dams of religious appli- 
ances, contrivances, rites, forms, and ceremonies. 

Religion is like that which feeds it. God feeds it. 
God is good, and all that comes from God is good. So 
all religions must be good, though sometimes seeming 
wrong. 

A kiss, a bubble, or a prayer ; a blow, reproof, or 
solemn scorn — are of religion. The plays of childhood, 
and the cheats of manhood, produced by human desires, 
are the fruits of religion. Great moral and worldly 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. f ) 1 

distinctions ; material excellence and material degrada- 
tion ; sectarian convictions of excellence and goodness 
above those who are without the enclosure of a sect ; 
fashionable extravagance and corresponding want ; 
surfeiting and hunger; excessive indulgence and exces- 
sive restraint; bad actions and good actions — all these 
are the product of human desires, are the fruits of hu- 
man religion. Human actions are produced by human 
desires ; so all the doings of human life are the effect 
of religion, without a single exception. 

Belief and doctrine have little to do with religion ; 
want and have have more. There is no volition in 
belief; there is no volition in unbelief. Doctrine and 
belief are the smoke of our soul-desires, the worthless 
effects of religion. Every desire has a cause, and, con- 
sequently, is lawful. Every religion is of God, and, 
consequently, is good. 

Every man and every woman is deeply and truly 
religious. And religion is a gift that comes, unseen, 
direct from the hand of nature. Who shall stand 
apart, and say, "J am religious, and you, my brother, are 
not religious ? " Every belief is from the power of na- 
ture, and every desire is from the power of nature. 

Fannie Green, who all church time thinks how hand- 
some her new bonnet and dress look to others, is as 
truly religious as the excellent Mary who everybody 
knows to be pious and good, who listens to every 
word the minister says, and joins devotedly in prayer 
and praise. 

The sportsman who shoots game and catches fish 
on Sunday, is no less religious than is the good minis- 
ter who fires guns of self-righteousness at the faults 
of others, and fishes for men on Sunday. Both have 



92 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

desires that are true to the condition of each. Neither 
is m the pursuit of pain ; one is not truer to life than 
the other ; one loves happiness no more than the other. 

The business man, who forms his plans and schemes 
for enterprises in commerce in sermon-time, is as true 
to God's religion as the man who hears every word of 
the sermon in the confidence of a certain hope that 
what he calls the word of God will be fulfilled ; viz., 
" The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the na- 
tions that forget God." 

The man who laughs is as religious as the man who 
sighs. 

Solemn, devotional, sectarian curses, are no more 
religious than unmeaning, trivial, secular curses. 

The murder of restraint is no less the effect of 
religion than the murder of indulgence ; both are the 
effect of human desire, and every human desire is nat- 
ural religion. 

The lady in heavy silk, in fine, clean linen, and neat 
kid gloves, has desires — is religious; she loves God; 
she loves happiness. And the woman in thin, dirty cal- 
ico, in squalid wretchedness, in degradation, deep in 
sin, poor in spirit, is no less religious ; desires happi- 
ness no less ; loves God no less ; has a heart that beats 
longing throbs for heaven no less than the other. 
Both are religious. 

Religion ever brings its demands. Every desire 
must, in the order of its spiritual nature, be satisfied. 
The stream of Lethe washes away what the soul 
desires to lose, and the stream of God flows in to sat- 
isfy every want. 

Nothing is heartily believed that is said by others, 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 93 

unless it find a response from the soul-consciousness of 
the hearer. 

A trath that relates to spiritual things can never be 
driven into a man from without. A capacity is de- 
veloped in man for spiritual truths, or, what seems 
almost the same thing, truth is developed within and 
comes out of a man, as a rosebud unfolds its leaves 
and fragrance from within outward. Unseen spiritual 
streams of power flow into the soul, and the soul, 
from its own God-given nature, produces its own 
truths, as the bee produces honey by its own God- 
given nature. 

No spiritual truth can be forced upon the soul by 
external teachings, no more than the fragrance of an- 
other flower can be forced into a rose, and substituted 
for its own peculiar fragrance. 

There is no such thing as spiritual culture coming 
from the teachings of another. 

A soul-conviction is the product of natural growth. 
A soul-conviction is a soul-truth — is a part of the soul. 
We hear a thought uttered by another ; our souls 
respond, " How beautiful, how true is that thought!" 
The capacity for that truth, and, more, that truth itself, 
is already developed in our souls ; and it may be that, 
by some undiscovered law, our souls have helped pro- 
duce its utterance in the speaker. Other souls who 
hear the same thought responded to its utterance, 
" How silly — how false! " Those other souls have no 
capacity developed for that truth ; they have not that 
truth developed yet. No man ever did, or ever can, 
interiorly accept religion from another man. Yet this 
may be done by pretence, and is, outwardly done ; and 



94 WHATEVER IS, IS RTGHT. 

such acceptance is changeable and fleeting, like other 
external things. 

A creed may be offered to me for acceptance, and J 
may outwardly accept it ; but my soul does not accept 
it, unless it is developed out of my soul ; then its ex- 
ternal presentation would be useless. Thus, to the 
soul of man, to that property of a man which is im- 
mortal, a creed, a belief, a doctrine, a religion, taught 
by another, is nothing' worth. All religions, outwardly 
presented, outwardly taught, belong to outward things, 
not to the soul. All religions of this kind are good 
for material excellence, but for the soul are worth- 
less. Such are the religions of which men take cog- 
nizance ; such is the religion of our churches. 

All outward, visible religions, all religions taught 
from books, from the pulpit, from the lips and pens of 
men and women, add nothing to the advancement 
of the soul heavenward, but tend to enhance the glory 
of material things. This seems right ; for the soul 
grows just as fast, and no faster, while we polish mat- 
ter, as it does while we disintegrate, break up, and de- 
stroy forms of material beauty. Our soul-desires, our 
heart-longings are just the same, let our hands do what 
they will, let our semblance be what it will, let our out- 
ward garments of religion be white, black, or any tinge 
or color, as they may chance to be. 

Our soul-desires cannot be altered by external relig- 
ion, but, in defiance of any and all outward influences, 
make perpetually one eternal longing for happiness. 
This is religion — religion, over which this outward 
world can have no influence. These desires are as 
much beyond our powers of control as was our birth 
— as is our immortality. They are the spontaneous 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 95 

productions of nature. Every desire is right, good, 
beautiful, true to the soul out of which it proceeds. 
And every truth, as it becomes a part of the souFs in- 
telligence, is developed out of the soul itself, in which 
is sown the seeds of infinite knowledge, to germinate? 
grow, and unfold, in fragrance and beauty, forever and 
forever. 

Seeds always germinate in darkness. So it is of 
the truths which germinate in the soul. In his own 
bosom man finds his God, immediate ; his heaven or 
his hell, located. 

The sun sometimes looks red, while it is the rising 

* vapors of the earth that tinge its pure rays. The sun 
goes down, and night comes ; it is the earth's own shadow 
that makes the darkness. The sun sends off its gener- 
ous rays the same in our night time as it does in our 
day time. It is the earth itself, held in nature's hand, 
that makes the sun look red, and white, and black. So 
it is with the soul of man ; its bloody vapors make a 
cloud, through which he sees a bloody God — a God 
of vengeance. The soul has revolutions ; it has day 
and night. In the daytime, God is bright and beauti- 
ful ; light is reflected from every object, for everywhere 
his rays of love are seen to fall. The night of the soul 
follows the day of the soul. In its revolution it turns 
its back to God, and in the shadow of itself it sees no 

1 God ; God is darkness, God is black. It is in this nat- 
ural darkness of the soul that a religion for its own 
salvation is conjured up. This is right. Love, which 
simply is desire, acts through all life, lives to death, 
and through death, and is then immortal. Love is 
desire ; desire is religion ; and there is not, there never 
was, a desire of the human soul that, to itself and in 



96 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

itself, was not pure love. Through matter, and the 
smoke and fumes of matter, these loves are often 
clouded, and appear impure to sensuous vision — to 
limited perception. From the great source of love un- 
counted streams flow out to human hearts, in channels 
made by a parent's impartial hand to all his own chil- 
dren. And when we shall see this spiritual influx, we 
shall see God's hand in every stream of love that flows 
to every human heart. Then we shall cease to say that 
the stream of God's love that flows to one heart, is bet- 
ter than the stream of God's love that flows to another 
heart; that one religion is better than another religion. 
Religion is human desire ; and desire is love: and love is 
beyond the accidents of time, because it is immortal ; 
and every love, in time, or after time, to our percep- 
tion 

" Will be as pure and white 
As beams of shining light.'" 

From the filth of refuse matter, or from the cleanest 
things of earth, it finally rises up to God, and mingles 
with the radiant beauties of celestial worlds. Religion 
is never gained by effort, struggle, force ; but is a spon- 
taneous production always developed in human desires. 



SPIRITUALISM. 

" New earth and heaven hold commune, day and night ; 
There's not a wind but bears upon its wing 
The messages of God." * * * 

It has been claimed that Spiritualism is simply a be- 
lief in the fact that spirits do communicate with mor- 
tals. This is but a superficial definition of the un- 
measured reality that is hidden beneath the repulsive, 
outside mantle of Spiritualism, which mantle is raa- 
. terial, and is seen only by material vision. This is not. 
the definition of Spiritualism, and the development of 
ages may not define it, for Spiritualism is that which 
pertains to the soul and its immortality, and is as un- 
defi nable as is the progress of the soul. 

The first recognition in Spiritualism is, the coming 
down of light to us. This comes of the teachings of 
the past. The idea that superior intelligences come to 
tell us something in words ; that spirits do communi- 
cate — is but a reiteration, in a little more palpable 
form, of what the " religious " world has taught for ages. 
These teachings are external to the soul. Spiritual 
communications are in time and place. But Spirit- 
ualism has something deeper than this. It teaches 
that spirit fills all space ; that it underlies and pervades 
all life and all matter, and that it tends upward for- 
ever ; that knowledge does not come down, but that it 
comes up ; it is the offspring of spirit-development ; 
that knowledge is developed out of the germ of the 
9 



98 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

soul, and is never received by the soul from without ; 
that the soul holds within itself the germ of all knowl- 
edge it shall ever possess. The unfolding of this 
knowledge is ever under the immediate laws of nature, 
is developed by the unseen reality of spirit-power. 

Spiritualism, in its truer definition, exhibits the con- 
scious perception of realities like these, not seen ; by 
the action of which, men in science and in ignorance, 
in wealth and in poverty, in sin and in holiness, in 
whatever place or condition, are moved on in the up- 
ward course of progression, independent of any effort 
or will of their own. 

Spiritualism never came to any one by contact or 
contagion ; if it did, it came and went. It comes 
spontaneously, springing up all over the earth the same, 
at the same time. Like an epidemic, it springs forth 
from every soul that has a condition developed for it. 
Spiritualists are made by nature, which is a stronger 
power than that of sectarian persuasion. Natural, 
spontaneous development is real ; forced persuasion 
is a dark mist, through which the real can come up. 

Shakspeare did not ask nature to make him what he 
was, but without a petition nature made him a Shaks- 
peare. So it is of every man, great or little ; and so it 
is of Spiritualism ; it is nature's gift ; it is nature's 
work; it has come unasked, uncalled for. There is no 
record in history of any religion that has ever sprung 
up simultaneously all over the earth, without leaders 
and promulgators, as Spiritualism has. Thus Spirit- 
ualism, as a religion, when compared with other relig- 
ions, is something new, and, consequently, strange. 

Spiritualism, like the God who gave it, is impartial 
I know two bishops who are Spiritualists; I know 



WHATEVER IS, TS RIGHT. 99 

ministers of all denominations who are Spiritualists; 
and a few deacons, and a great many church members. 
I know men who do not profess any religion, who are 
Spiritualists ; I know infidels who are Spiritualists, 
and any quantity of sinners ; I know sabbath-break- 
ers, profane swearers, drunkards, gamblers, prostitutes, 
convicts, and rebels, who are Spiritualists, This gift 
of Heaven has come to all grades and classes, just as 
if God, in giving it, was perfectly regardless of the 
great distinctions that man has made between man 
and man. 

The simple, foolish man has got it; the tattling old 
woman has got it ; the lovely maiden has got it, and 
the intelligent matron, too ; the honest laborer, and the 
man of tricks and stratagems ; the recreant and the 
erring, the judicious and the just, have equal claims to 
its possession. It comes without respect of persons. 
In this respect it is new. Real Spiritualism costs no 
money; so the poor have it the same as the rich, and 
the rich have it the same as the poor. It comes forth 
from calico and rags, the same as from twilled silk and 
whole cloth; the town poorhouse that gives lodgings 
to forty families, the same as from the private mansion 
that gives lodgings to only one family, and cost ten 
times as much. It comes from the state prison just 
the same as from the church; from the peasant's gar- 
den, as much as from the consecrated altar. It comes 
on Monday the same as on Sunday. 

" I don't believe it is true," says one, " for such 
wicked folks are Spiritualists ! If it be of God, he 
would send it to his own children, to his Church, and 
only to his own people." In the light of Spiritualism, 
there are no children that are not God's children ; there 



100 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

are no people that are not God's people ; and if one 
child of God needs a gift from heaven more than an- 
other, it is the child of suffering and misery. The ex- 
cellences of a virtuous life, when scanned, are only ma- 
terial ; in real Spiritualism they are only the vapors of 
life. Polish matter forever, and it adds no polish to 
the spirit. What we call virtue, belongs to the mate- 
rial world — not the spiritual. Clean up and decorate 
the body, and make beautiful all its appurtenances, 
and it does nothing to the spirit in that body ; elevate 
the body, and let all men bow in recognition to its ele- 
vation — it does not elevate the spirit. Tread down, 
wear, tear, and mutilate, even kill the body belonging 
to a human soul, and the spirit is untouched, uninflu- 
enced. 

We have been taught, substantially, that material 
excellence makes us spiritually excellent ; a clean out- 
side; just and upright walk before the world; a good 
example set to others by outside life and actions ; an 
eternal war with what man calls evil impulses, planted 
by nature in our souls, will make our passport up 
to Heaven, and influence the world to reformation. 
Spiritualism, in the very manner of its coming, breaks 
the whole fabric of what has been called a spiritual 
superstructure, built on and made of material things, 
and scatters its fragments of fancies to the four winds 
of the earth. Spiritualism brings truth and enduring, 
realities in its arms, and phantoms fade away before 
the light of its coming. These realities are felt, not 
seen, with physical eyes. It comes forth a spontane- 
ous production of nature, the offspring of nature's in- 
flexible laws; no human hand helps it; no human 
voice advances it ; it is independent of the efforts, of 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 101 

the hands and the voices of men that have built and 
have supported churches, sects, and religions. There is 
not a shadow of sect or sectarianism about real Spirit- 
ualism ; there is not, nor can there be, any human effort 
that can sustain it, or hold it up by the aid of even the 
smallest atom of power in the universe. Its currents 
flow unseen from the infinite ocean of spirit-life, into 
the souls of men and women, as they become devel- 
oped for its reception by natural growth. As the river 
flows along a channel made by nature, moved by 
unchanging law, unbidden, ungoverned by nan, so 
Spiritualism flows into the channel of the human soul 
that nature develops, and the manifestations of Spirit- 
ualism are the effect of this influx. 

The fact that spirits do communicate, is but one of 
the effects of the real thing ; it is not the definition of 
Spiritualism. Spiritualism, in its unseen beauty, is 
like the centrifugal and the centripetal forces of nature, 
that hold the starry worlds of immensity subservient to 
their silent power. The antagonism of one to the other 
makes the heavenly spheres move in circles and in 
silent harmony forever. These powers are unseen ; 
we only know their effects. Spirit-power holds the 
intellectual universe by attraction and repulsion — by 
the centripetal and the centrifugal spirit-forces of na- 
ture — the same as worlds of matter are held and 
moved by these powers. The souls of men, in the 
circles of eternity, revolve upward forever. The rec- 
ognition of real Spiritualism is the recognition of 
this spirit-power. The recognition of the fact that 
spirits do communicate, is only the recognition of one 
of the effects of this power, arid conveys but the faint- 
est idea of its realitv. 
j 

9* 



102 WHATEVER IS, TS Ri'orHT. 

One of the prominent features of Spiritualism is 
this : the finger of nature writes its tenets on each 
individual soul, for each individual soul. A Spiritualist 
learns no catechism, written in a book, and rehearses 
no creed that another has taught him. No Spiritualist 
ever goes to another Spiritualist for his soul convic- 
tions or his religious persuasion. In Spiritualism relig- 
ious convictions flow from an unseen source into the 
soul, exactly in accordance with the nature of the soul, 
and proportionate to its capacities. All other religions 
have written creeds and rules of action, which are 
adopted for government. 

You may say that the convention of Spiritualists 
at Plymouth adopted something of this sort in their 
published " Declaration of Sentiments." I affirm that 
Spiritualism did not do this, nor can it do any such 
thing. It was the " orthodoxy " of the convention 
that made this declaration, which savors so strongly 
of a religious creed, that it differs but little, if any, from 
other religious creeds. Spiritualism has no religious 
creed, nor can it ever have. The truly progressive soul 
has new convictions every day — so that the creed of 
yesterday would not answer for to-day. 

Spiritualism recognizes human souls ; and fortheg-oz;- 
ernmentoi human souls, a power unseen. It cares but 
little for the soul's material habiliments, or its mani- 
festations that the world sees, to approve or condemn. 
It heeds not the man-made garments of religious or 
moral beauty. The clean outside and the virtuous life 
are to Spiritualism just the same as the habiliments of 
crime, pollution, and degradation. These are each 
mortal ; the soul is immortal. 

In spirit-truth, the mephitic curse of pollution, of 






WHATEVER IS, IS RICIHT. 103 

prostitution, of drunkenness, of debauchery, piss away 
as the dews of morning when the sun rises. Spiritual- 
ism comes just the same to the self-debased and hu- 
miliated, as it does to the self-excellent and the self- 
righteous. Distinctions among men, to Spiritualism, 
are phantoms ; and they fade away when Spiritualism 
comes, as the darkness of the morning does when the 
sun gets up. 

The greatest wickednesses are but the damps of life, 
that are produced by soul-growth, and thereby soften 
and prepare the soul sooner for the development of new 
truth. Tears dissolve the cement of material love, and 
make bare the soul for the tendrils of spiritual love to 
cling to. 

" Why don't Spiritualism, if true, come to the 
Church?" says one, and reiterate a thousand others. 
Because material love is there, woven into a beautiful, 
strong garment of self-excellence, which covers the' 
soul when weak for protection. When Spiritualism 
does come there, every shred of this garment will be 
rent and scattered ; for the soul shall then have grown 
to a strength where it needs such covering no longer. 

" What ! " says another, " do you mean to say that 
a person who has lived a truly religious life, has 
always been happy in the love of Christ and God, has 
ever been faithful and true to the teachings of the 
Bible and the church, is no more prepared to receive 
truth from the spirit-world, than is a prostitute, a drunk- 
ard, a rebel, a criminal ? " 

I do mean to say precisely this. I will tell you why 1 
say that the last shall be first, and the first last. Whom 
the Lord loveth he chasteneth. Afflictions always ben- 
efit the soul's freedom ; joy is only recreation, not the 



104 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

work of the soul's growth. Death of material love 
is the reward of sin, which is the effect of spiritual 
development. Self-approvement is the enjoyment of 
what is already possessed, not the cause which brings 
new possessions. 

Every pain of woe and tear of anguish is a pulsa- 
tion in the soul's progression. These are always the 
direct or indirect effect of what we call wickedness ex- 
isting in the world somewhere. Who suffers more 
than the wretched sinner? Who suffers less than the 
good and faithful Christian, who chooses and walks in 
the way of pleasantness, where all the paths are paths 
of peace ? 

All the steps of human progress in the upward flight 
of every soul must be passed. Every degree of 
growth in the unfolding of the germ of the soul by the 
stern demand of God's laws must be passed. If hell 
be anywhere, and have existence, it must be on the 
lower steps of human progress ; and every soul, to gain 
a higher ascent, must first pass over the steps below. 
Can another soul pass the ordeal of my affliction for me ? 
No, never! There has never been a pang of human 
woe, that shall not be virtually mine in my progression. 
There is no degradation, no misery, no suffering, which 
I must not in my progression gain mastery over; and to 
do this, the misery and the suffering must be mine in 
sympathy, or in some form of suffering*. There is no 
squalid wretchedness of earth that I need turn aside 
from, for it is mine, or shall be mine in spirit. We tri- 
umph over misery, never, before we have the power to 
do so, which power only comes of its possession. 

" There is no true knowledge till descent, 
Nor then, till after." 



WHATEVER TS, IS RIGHT. 105 

Hell shall sometime rise on wings of ecstacy to praise 
God forever, and Spiritualism tells me that when this 
shall be, I shall go to heaven too. 

Spiritualism is the first and the only religion on 
earth that exists independent of extraneous influences; 
that goes back to spirit to find the causes of all human 
actions ; that deals with spirit independent of matter. 
Spiritualism has to do, or will have, with unseen 
causes, not with visible effects ; it reaches beyond the 
effects, which we see manifest in the material world, 
and recognizes the real thing, which is spirit, and 
which is far more powerful, more lovely, more endur- 
ing than all the powers, the beauties, and the glories 
of the material world. Spiritualism asks for and 
wants no material organization for its support. It 
asks for no house in which to worship God, for every- 
where the soul is in the house of God. It asks for no 
creed which human reason fabrics to bind itself unto, 
by sectarian chains that, in reality, hold nobody. It 
asks for no printed book to guide the soul to heaven, 
for the soul feels the love of angels drawing it upward 
and homeward. It asks for no external teachings to 
prepare the soul for heaven, for in it the soul feels 
and recognizes the unseen power of God in every act 
of life, working out its inevitable, beautiful destiny, 
and preparing it for the ioys of heaven 



THE SOt L, ONLY, IS REAL. 

The soul is our governor, our teacher, and our guide, 
in all that pertains to spirit-life. Human reason is 
only its agent in matter. The soul, and that which 
sustains it, is all there is of human existence that en- 
dures. And we have no real conscious recognition of 
the soul's existence until intuition is developed in us. 
When this comes, the perceptions of the soul run 
through all matter, as lightning runs through air, and 
the world of causes is clear to its perceptions ; it sees, 
then, the now unseen laws of all things. And sooner 
or later all the forms of the material world disintegrate 
and dissolve by the rising up of the spirit, which is to 
be recognized as the living reality. 

All life that is spiritual is immortal. Spirit is the 
basis of all life, and can never, never die. All that is 
material, or that pertains to the material, is the effect 
of the spirit and is changeable. 

From whence the spirit cometh, and whither it goeth 
in its eternal destiny, we cannot tell, save by the light 
of intuition, which is yet but feebly developed in 
any human soul on earth. All that we know of the 
soul, which is scarcely any thing yet, is alone from the 
light of intuition. All of life that we have taken cog- 
nizance of yet in our earthly existence, save the spirit, 
is but the shadows of matter that in the light of the 
spirit will pass away. The soul and its appurtenances 
are the only real things of human existence. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 107 

Every deed of human life is subservient to the soul. 
Oar desires are servants of the soul; our will is the 
agent of our desires, and our deeds are the products of 
our will. The soul is the great moving cause of all 
our actions. And still behind the soul our intuitions 
shall discover other causes ; and then perhaps still 
further find causes of causes, and on, still on, ad infini- 
tum ; and then exclaim, O God ! what realms of hid- 
den causes lie beyond the reach of our developments, 
which the soul in its eternal progress shall never cease 
to find ! New, still new, forever ! 

The soul of man ! What immensity, what illimit- 
able grandeur is in the word ! How small, how finite 
are the mightiest conceptions of the soul's vision now, 
when compared with the illimitable grandeur of u> 
undefined, eternal progression in truth and light. 



SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

A consciousness of evil is simply, in one word, a 
proclamation of u your faults " and " my virtues" 
This is popular orthodoxy. If there be any one thing 
that seems puerile and ridiculous — that seems like an 
old garment no longer useful and necessary — it is the 
idea, that for ages has been so fondly cherished ; viz., 
that one child of God is better than another child of 
God; that one immortal soul is better than another im- 
mortal soul ; that one is more evil and another is less 
evil ; that, in our spiritual existence, one is higher and 
another is lower. 

Humanity moves heavenward together, — all men 
and all women in one solid phalanx on the journey of 
unending progress. All sail on one level sea of life 
along together, in storms and in sunshine, over the 
waves of progress. No one is above — no one is be- 
low. A wave may bear you a little higher, for a 
moment, than others, but you descend again while 
others come up — and the average level is the fixed 
destiny of each one. All sail on the great sea of God, 
whose hand holds both the winds and the waves, and 
w T hose infinite love directs us as we sail. 

I cannot but conclude that the element in humanity 
that has made distinctions of good and bad, high and 
low, in the souls of men, — I mean the element of self- 
righteousness, — will sometime find its culminating 
point, and, like fruit matured to ripened rottenness, 



WHATEVER IS, IS BIGHT. 109 

drop off and go back again to the earth that has given 
it a life and existence of tremendous vigor ; and our 
spiritual eyes will be opened to the more real and en- 
during truth of a spiritual oneness ; of a universal 
brotherhood ; of a loving household of human beings, 
whose father is God; whose interests are one; whose 
home b a heaven of harmony, peace, love, and kind- 
ness — not a heaven of distinctions. 

The whole idea of evil, which is always in others, 
not in ourselves, has its beginning in, and its out- 
growth from, selfishness, self-excellence, self-righteous- 
ness. But this selfishness is lawful to the condition 
that produces it — necessary in early spiritual growth. 

I will make one affirmation which all men cannot 
disprove — it is this : The man who sees the most evil 
in the world, and is most troubled by its influences, 
and feels and utters the severest protests against its ex- 
istence, — without one single exception, — possesses 
self-righteousness commensurate with the magnitude 
of the evil he sees. 

Can a man consistently condemn a wrong deed, un- 
less he conscientiously feels himself better than the 
i man who commits that wrong deed ? No. Men are 
sincere in a belief in hell — in the existence of evil; 
they are sincere, also, in the condemnation of evil ; 
but the cause of a belief in evil, and of its condemna- 
tion, is a consciousness of self-excellence and self- 
righteousness. 

" Our preachers first think they are safe." 

, He who thinks it is his solemn duty to work for the 
1 redemption of humanity from sin and evil deeds, al- 
ways thinks it is others, not himself, that reed redemp* 
tion. 
\ 10 



110 WHATEVER IS, IS EIGHT. 

Devils, as we call them, are the immediate messen- 
gers of God, whose mission it is, by obsessions and 
"devilish deeds of injury," to relieve humanity sooner 
of the cumbersome, heavy chains of self-righteousness. 
The work of " devils," I cannot doubt, shall ultimate in 
the highest good for all human souls — shall blossom 
at last in the fruition of Infinite Love. But I do not 
think that " devils " can yet see the good that will 
come out of their deeds any more than we, who are 
not a whit their inferiors or their superiors, can see yet 
the good that shall blossom out of every deed that we 
do. God, in his infinite wisdom, sets us all at work, 
and keeps us at work ; and every deed we do in life is 
done in wisdom, God being the witness. He knows, 
in light, that his own work is right, while men and 
devils in darkness swear it is not. 

" # # # all the world is but 
A quality of God, and * * * 
All the countless souls therein, 
The best, the worst, are heirs to one salvation/' 

I see a hand of wisdom in all the various influences 
of so-called evil spirits. And of influences called evil 
by others, sincerely, without any qualification by the 
use of the words positive, accidental, real, and compara- 
tive, I solemnly affirm, in plain English, I know no 
evil, no wrong. I use the word evil because others use 
it ; I use it to convey an idea that is hard to convey 
without its use. All evil influences are means, or ef- 
fects of means, to work out the highest good. So that 
which is, or is to be, productive of good, I cannot call 
wrong or evil. When a consciousness of evil shall 
cease to exist, self-righteousness has gone where dark- 
ness goes when light comes ; has gone to a local hell 
)f fire and brimstone, where nothing exists. 



SELF-EXCELLENCE. 

u Very boastful was Iagoo ; 
Never heard he an adventure, 
But himself had met a greater ; 
Never any deed of daring, 
But himself had done a bolder: 
Never any marvellous story, 
But himself could.teli a stranger. 
No one ever shot an arrow 
Half so far and high as he had ; 
Ever caught so many fishes, 
Ever killed so many reindeer, 
Ever trapped so many beaver. 
None could run so fast as he could, 
None could dive as deep as he could, 
None had made so many journeys, 
None had seen so many wonders, 
As this wonderful Iagoo. " 

There is this element of self-excellence in human- 
ity. All possess it ; some in a greater, some in a less, 
degree. Some think it and feel it without expressing 
it in words ; while others are free to express it without 
disguise. 

No scholar was ever so learned that another scholar 
did not think himself more learned. No statesman was 
ever so great that another did not think himself a 
greater. No man was ever so religious that another 
did not think himself more religious. No man ever 
took a step in reform that another man did not claim 
to have taken before him. No man ever sent forth 
a fresh thought, an original idea, that another man did 



112 WHATEVER TS, IS RIGHT. 

not claim the credit of. No Spiritualist ever had an 
angel guardian so pure that another did not claim a 
purer. 

This element is well developed in human souls ; I 
should think that it had reached its culminating point. 
The fruit of self-excellence is ripe. Walt Whitman 
said : " There was more in trivialities, in vulgar per- 
sons, in slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected refuse, than I 
had supposed." And I have often thought that there 
may be something in the development of this ridiculous 
self-excellence, now so ripe and big in humanity, more 
than we have supposed. To sensuous perception it is 
truly repulsive and disgusting ; but in spirit it may be 
otherwise. Festus says that the weakest things are 
to be made examples of God's might. It may be so 
with this apparent weakness of human nature. 

Man esteems himself almost a god, and in this esti- 
mation there may be a godlike element. I know one 
lady who sincerely believes in a personal God, and 
that God is specially her guardian spirit. I know 
another lady who sincerely believes that she is con- 
stantly influenced and especially guarded by the spirit 
of Jesus Christ. And we Spiritualists are exceedingly 
prone to believe that we are guarded by very high 
spirits ; by those who were high in the material world. 
A great many times I have heard Spiritualists say, 
" Oh! dark spirits never come to me ; only pure and 
good spirits come to influence me, or communicate with 
me. I never associate with that class of Spiritualists 
that draw around them dark spirits." Obsessions have 
regulated and levelled up these cases, or will do it. A 
great many Spiritualists, by letters and by conversa- 
tion, have signified a positive belief that they had, 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 113 

individually, a mission to perform that was not a whit 
inferior to that of Christ. A multitude have fondly 
cherished this belief; some silently, but earnestly; 
others openly, and with a wild fanaticism. With some 
it has lasted a few months ; with others, a year, or two, 
or three. It is the greatest medicine for self-humilia- 
tion in the whole spiritual pharmacopia. By this 
means a man loses his self-righteousnes and his seL- 
excellence. By disappointment in the fondest and 
most ardent longings for material glory, he is thrown 
down upon the level plain of humanity where the cross 
of Christ stands. Perhaps no other means could have 
brought him there so soon. 

How futile, how childlike appears this love of exulta- 
tion of one above another ! How fictitious and how 
fleeting appears the reality ! How beautiful is human- 
ity ! How sweet is the concord and oneness of a hu- 
man brotherhood ! Christ was meek and lowly ; the 
inhabitants of celestial worlds feel no such self-excel- 
lence as this wonderful Iagoo felt. But i lis self- 
excellent manifestation is in its place, is right 
10* 



VISION OF MRS. J. S. ADAMS. 

" I see all the children of creation standing in ranks, 
irrespective of grades or worlds. I see them in space ; 
and every soul has its spaceway filled by a spirit above, 
and that by an attendant ; and on and on they reach, 
into space illimitable. They seem like pyramids of 
life, towers of animation. There are some beneath 
thee ; there are many above thee. The soul that 
stands beside thee has them all the same ; and thus 
they seem like millions on millions of chains, going up 
to immortality, to Deity. And each soul seems a link 
fastened in by God's own hand, and riveted by time. 
He stretches forth his hand to take one link, and it 
draws the chain to himself. And I gaze far, far into 
celestial courts, till my vision fails, till brilliancy repels, 
and I draw back. Then down I look, far beneath the 
human chain, into matter undeveloped, till vision fails 
me here, and I draw back amazed. 

" We, too, are linked together in one chain of this 
existence. Thy existence is riveted into mine, and 
mine links on another's, and another link fastens itself 
to thee. We move on with the throng, and the links 
of none are unprotected. There is no desert heart ; 
there is no forsaken child." 



HUMAN DISTINCTIONS. 

The con*, parisons we make between man and man 
belong to the material world, not to the spiritual ; the 
distinctions of human life are ephemeral, not enduring. 

" merit or demerit none I know." 



Could we see all men with the eye of Omniscient 
Wisdom, I cannot doubt that we should fail to find in 
the whole man any merit or demerit ; any distinction 
which would make one more excellent than another. 
We see not, nor do we comprehend, the vast amount 
of beauty that is budding and growing in every immor- 
tal soul. We judge of men by external, isolated char- 
acteristics ; and thus we consecrate in the man we 
call excellent a vast amount of nothingness ; while in 
the man we call evil we condemn a vast amount of 
real goodness. We judge men when we do not know 
them ; the interior man we cannot see or know ; and 
if we judge a man, we judge him always by a material 
standard, without knowledge of his spiritual worth. 

One man has developments in one direction, another 
man in another direction. One man in his external 
developments is excessively good, while in his interna] 
developments of goodness he may appear to be want- 
ing. Another has external developments of great ap- 
parent evil, and large unseen, unspoken developments 
of great goodness. 

The various external manifestations of human life 



116 WHATEVER IS, IS RTGHT. 

are not a true index of the character of the soul. By 
these manifestations we can no more judge of the 
condition and quality of the soul than we can judge 
of the gold in the refiner's fire by the smoke that 
ascends upward from the burning dross. 

Could we weigh each man in the scales of eternal 
truth, no one who has an immortal soul made by God 
and growing up to him, would in any possible degree 
be found wanting ; neither would one soul be found 
to possess more value, more weight in goodness, than 
another. 

We talk of the family of humanity, of a universal 
brotherhood. In a universal brotherhood am I better 
than my brother, or is my brother better than I am ? 
Are there distinctions in the household of humanity? 
Are not all equal ? 

All distinctions made between the souls of men are 
like an ignis fatuus, and will vanish from their minds 
with other delusions. A God impotent, feeble, and 
angry, and a devil all-powerful, subtle, cunning, and 
triumphant, these are kindred delusions, and will fade 
away and be buried in one grave, to be known and 
seen no more in a higher condition of human growth. 

Last January the heart of that poor little beggar 
girl beat beneath the thin covering of calico, as sensi- 
bly to the treatment of cruelty or kindness, as did the 
heart of the child of fortune beneath warm clothing, 
and furs of fitch or sable. Each one of these little 
girls was governed by the same eternal laws. The 
despised poor and the courted rich have the same 
claims on the laws of nature, — on the laws of love. 
The Duke of Richmond, with his home and farm of 
thirty-five square miles, in crowded England, which 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 117 

farm is covered with every thing material love can ask 
for, and an income of $800,000 a year, is governed by 
the same unerring, undeviating laws that poor Patrick 
is, who shovels up the grades of our railroads for a 
dollar and a quarter a day. The laws of birth, of life, 
of death, are common to each ; the laws of God, 
through nature, govern both ; destiny holds one, and 
destiny holds the other, too, in her eternal grasp. God 
is impartial — destiny has no monopolies. Air is 
everywhere ; it is not theft to breathe it. All that per- 
tains to the spirit is free ; what to one is free in spirit, 
to all is. 

Material monopolies are monopolies of fiction ; the 
laws of nature level them. Every sinner had birth 
pretty much after the same manner that every saint 
had. Trace a sinner and a saint along together from 
infancy to old age, and it will be found that the laws 
of nature govern both about the same ; the law of 
gravitation holds each alike to the earth ; an earth- 
quake would swallow one the same as the other; 
when it rains, it rains for both the same; the sun 
shines for both ; water quenches thirst and food satis- 
fies hunger the same in each ; each have necessities to 
be answered, which do not differ. The saint has two 
hundred and fifty bones in his body, and so has the 
sinner ; cut off the femoral artery, and either would 
bleed to death in fifteen minutes. Tubercles in the 
lungs will ulcerate, c&tera paribus, about alike in both. 
Each has consciousness and intelligence, has love and 
hate, good and bad ; nature chains each ; destiny holds 
each. Where, in nature, shall we look for that mighty 
difference between the good and the bad man ? Na- 
ture points no finger to it; and nature is the purest 



118 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 



itinc- 



revelation from the hand of God. This great distin< 
tion between good and bad men is a moral and relig- 
ious fiction, found nowhere except in the vapor of 
man's belief, in his materialism, in man's judgment. 
It is not a reality that endures, but with the other 
changing, fleeting things of time, falls away from be- 
fore the soul's vision, and, like clouds that were, are 
gone, leaving not a trace behind. 



EXTREMES ARE BALANCED BY 

EXTREMES. 

" In changing moon, in tidal wave, 
Glows the feud of Want and Have." 

Whenever we see excess in life, then we may be 
sure there is somewhere a want, corresponding to the 
amount of excess. If there is extravagance and waste 
of necessary and useful things, there must be some- 
where in humanity a corresponding need unanswered. 
Where the tide of earthly riches runs high in one 
place, it is correspondingly low in another. 

A woman in Chicago recently bought a shawl, for 
which she paid one thousand dollars ; and a set of lace, 
for which she paid five hundred dollars. Another wo- 
man in New York was recently arrested for stealing a 
turkey. The officer who arrested her and " redeemed" 
the stolen turkey, reported to the judge who was to try 
her case, that there was not a vestige of food in her 
attic room, which room was destitute of every com- 
fort ; and that her three children, before he made the 
arrest, were so hungry that they had torn the raw meat 
off from the turkey's legs and wings, and had eaten it. 
The judge thought that the Bible justified stealing to 
satisfy hunger, and let the poor woman go. And per- 
haps she is hungry still, to balance some other excess. 

Fifteen hundred dollars, the amount paid for the 
shawl and laces, if judiciously expended on the soil of 
some of the millions of uncultivated acres of land ii 



120 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

our country, would produce one thousand bushels of 
wheat and five hundred turkeys, or an amount of prod- 
uce large enough to feed a great many poor widows, 
with their starving families, for the whole winter. 

Anna West had a Christmas present sent to her — a 
box of jewellery worth eleven hundred dollars. Mary 
Jones did not have a present ; and was so poor that 
she could not go to church, because she had not even 
the plainest clothes to wear. Mary worked hard for a 
dollar and a half a week, and with all that she earned 
she could hardly make her aged father and mother 
comfortable. Extremes are balanced by extremes. 

A woman in Cincinnati came so near starvation, 
that she sold her baby for five dollars, whereby she was 
enabled to procure food to sustain life. A gentleman 
on Colonnade Row, in Boston, the same week, had 
served on his Christmas dinner-table fourteen luxuri- 
ant courses, with eleven servants in attendance ; this 
excess was balanced by a corresponding want. 

Jeanette Follett, at New Year's evening ball, wore a 
dress made of white tarleton, with twenty -four flounces 
edged with a full ruche of tulle illusion, and the ruche 
itself edged with very narrow black lace. Over this, 
she wore a berthe to match the flounces, composed of 
four chrysanthemums — pink, pale lilac, white and light 
cerese without leaves. Bouquets to match the skirt, 
six on each side, arranged en tablier, from the bottom 
of the skirt to the waist. Her hair was dressed with 
chrysanthemums and lilacs, and black and white blonde. 
On the same day little Mary Mahoney — in a dirty, rag- 
ged calico dress, an old rag for a shawl, hugged close 
over her shoulders ; with an old pair of cast-off shoes 
twice as large as her little feet, and holes in them. 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 121 

through which her naked, freezing toes could be seen ; 
she was without drawers and other under-clothes, 
shivering with the winter's cold — asked alms, be- 
cause her father and mother were hungry. Her father 
was poor and helpless with disease, and her mother 
was dying with consumption. With shrinking reluc- 
tance she said, " Please give me a cent to buy some 
bread I" 

Jeanette had every earthly comfort in her possession, 
and she had a great deal more than was necessary — 
while little Mary was destitute of almost every nec- 
essary earthly comfort. Jeanette was smiled upon, 
bowed to, praised, and flattered. Mary was frowned 
upon, sent away, chilled and almost frozen for want of 
human sympathy and human compassion. Is Jeanette 
better than Mary ? No ; each one is a lawful child of 
God. If Jeanette claims more of the good things of 
this world than is necessary for her, there must be a 
deficiency somewhere — and by fate it has fallen on 
Mary. Mary only needs that which Jeanette does not 
need for her comfort. Give to Mary what Jeanette 
does not need for her comfort and happiness, and 
Mary, and her father, and mother, too, would be made 
comfortable. Nature will always balance extremes by 
extremes. 

But nature's God fails not to take care of little 
things and desolate^ rejected little girls. Little Mary 
will find rest in heaven sooner for her sufferings. Her 
suffering is good for her — it draws her love earlier to 
the realities of the spiritual world. Mary will some 
time see that it is the hand of Wisdom that has pro- 
duced her suffering for her more rapid growth in good- 
11 



122 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

ness, and be thankful that she has suffered. So it will 
be with all those who suffer from deprivation and 
want, and also from any other earthly cause. God ir 
nature takes care of us for our good, always. 



THE TIES OF SYMPATHY. 

All human beings are bound together by ties of 
sympathy, which our earthly perceptions cannot recog 
nize and eternity will not sever. One unseen pulse of 
sympathy throbs in all humanity. The sufferings of 
those who are bound in the prison-house, influence all 
who are not in the prison-house ; the horrors of war in- 
fluence all ; the crimes of a few are felt by many ; the 
afflictions of one are felt by all; the pains of one are 
the pains of millions ; my suffering is your suffer- 
ing, and your suffering is my suffering ; the unseen 
power of sympathy runs everywhere, where human life 
is, and no joy or sorrow exists anywhere, that does not 
reach throughout the domain of all human existence. 
This mighty power of sympathy is yet unrecognized, 
and cannot be recognized by outward perception ; soul- 
perception alone will recognize it, see it, feel it, and 
know it. 

We are all God's children, all members of the same 
household, all bound together by ties that make one 
great human family. We all came from the same 
Great First Cause, and are all destined for the same 
eternal home. We have all nestled in the arms of a 
mother's love, and played in innocent childhood. We 
have grown to years of responsibility, and have been set 
adrift upon the world to act our part. Circumstance 
and condition — I had almost said fate — have disposed 
of us. On ? in early life is made food for worms ; an- 



124 WHATEVER 18, IS RTGHT. 

other by accident is crippled for the remainder of his 
earthly life ; another is for many years stretched upon 
a bed of sickness ; one is rich; another is poor. One is 
flattered, courted, and loved ; another is an outcast, 
degraded and scorned ; one is a criminal, and another 
thanks God that he is not the same ; one lives in tears, 
another in sunshine ; one is intelligent, another is ig- 
norant ; one is a publican, and one a pharisee ; one 
judges, another is judged ; one condemns, another is 
condemned; one is master, another is servant; one 
rules, another is ruled; the life of one is spent in con- 
stant toil, while another spends a life of ease and re- 
pose ; one eats the plainest food, and, for want of even 
that, suffers from hunger, while another is surfeited with 
the richest, costliest food, with luxuries in abundance ; 
one is a beggar, another is a miser ; one is ragged, 
another is clad in fine linen and costly silks ; one is in 
prison, while another is in freedom. And such, and 
such are the varied conditions of human life in matter. 
And all souls in these various walks of life — no mat- 
ter where they are, or what they are — are watched 
over and taken care of by the same eye that numbers 
the hairs of our heads. Each soul is a flower in the 
garden of eternal life, that is cared for and shall be 
clothed in beauty with more beneficent kindness of our 
Father, than are the lilies of the field. 

By Infinite Wisdom all the various conditions of joy 
and sorrow existing in all, are, by the power of sym 
pathy, made the property of all. 



ALL MEN ARE IMMORTAL. 

It is claimed by some that no human soul is immor- 
tal ; it is claimed by others that some, not all human 
souls, are immortal ; it is claimed and declared by mul- 
titudes, that all human souls are immortal. The last 
claim is in harmony with the deepest desires and the 
holiest longings of every human being. The immortal- 
ity of no soul can be proved by any philosophy that be- 
longs to earth. The evidence of immortality — the only 
positive, incontrovertible evidence is in the soul's intu- 
ition, which intuition for a time is wisely concealed in 
the soul's desires. In the desire for immortality alone 
may we seek and find the evidence, the sure and posi- 
tive evidence of its reality, and everybody has this 
evidence of immortality in that desire. 

No human soul desires to lose its identity ever; 
desires any thing short of an immortal existence. A 
denial, or a fractional denial, of the immortality of the 
living souls that make up humanity belongs not to intu- 
ition, but is repulsive to the sweetest, the deepest, the 
holiest desires of everybody's intuition ; it belongs to 
the philosophies of earth ; to the orthodoxy of self- 
righteousness. 

There is room enough in the limitless area of cre- 
ation for all life to exist, to progress, and increase in 
beauty forever and forever. 

If any life is immortal, all life is immortal. The 
philosophy of earth may call this assumption ; but if 
11* 



126 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

it does, what matters it ? Intuition transcends the 
facts of all philosophies. Philosophies belong not to 
the soul's intuitions ; th 3y are only effects. 

The life of every leaf on every forest tree that ever 
grew, still lives, and will live forever. The life of every 
flower that ever bloomed on earth still lives in real 
spiritual existence, and will live forever. The life of 
every insect and every reptile can never die, but must 
hold each its place in life forever. All animal and 
vegetable existence that has ever lived, lives still, and 
must live forever, because life can never die. 

When life goes out of matter, we say that death has 
come. Death is only the separation of life from mat- 
ter. Little Hiawatha saw the rainbow in the heavens, 
and asked the wrinkled, old Nokomis, who nursed his 
childhood, — 

« # # # What is that Nokomis 1 
And the good Nokomis answered : 
'Tis the heaven of flowers you see there ; 
All the wild flowers of the forest, 
All the lilies of the prairie, 
When on earth they fade and perish, 
Blossom in that heaven above us." 

All life in the vegetable creation rises up forever, with 
ever-increasing beauties, and all life in the animal cre- 
ation must do the same ; so if all life is immortal, both 
in the vegetable and in the animal kingdoms, the life of 
all men must be immortal too. 

All matter is pregnant with the elements of eternal 
life ; life that becomes manifest in creation, in forms 
that are infinite in variety. So it is not necessary for 
the production of human life, that we call the highest 
life, to absorb the identity of forms of life that we call 
lowrr. My intuition repels the thought that my life is 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 127 

made up of the sacrificed identities of countless forms 
of lower life. Creation has infinite beauty, and infi- 
nite variety constitutes this infinite beauty, and must, 
in order to support this variety, exist forever. 

All life that we have cognizance of, is but spirit 
reaching out through matter, and all spirit is immor- 
tal. It is spirit, it is life that produces all matter, and 
all the various forms of matter — and matter, like old 
scales, fall off from the real life, and this falling off is 
all that death is. No matter can in any possible way 
affect any life, for life is spirit brought to light in the 
material world. Sensuous vision by the aid of matter 
sees not life, but only the effects of life. 

To draw a line between crazy men, and men that are 
not crazy ; between foolish men, and men that are not 
foolish ; between idiotic men, and men that are not 
idiotic ; between men that are bad, and men that are 
not bad ; between men that are well organized, and men 
that are not well organized; between men that are ma- 
tured and ripened, and men that are not matured and 
ripened; between the buds and the blossoms of human 
souls, and say that on one side of this line is immor- 
tality and eternal identity, and on the other side is 
non-immortality and but a temporary identity — I say 
to do this, is to trace an unreal line in darkness, which 
is as futile and as " orthodox " as the conceptions of a 
hell that is to torment God's own dear children in un- 
utterable agony forever. This idea belongs to the 
trash deduced from human philosophies, all of which 
trash with its philosophies will be, in the soul's advance- 
ment, consigned to nonentity and non-immortality by 
the overpowering development of intuition. 

In tl e desires, in the longings of every soul, exist 



128 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

budding intuition, that shall grow up and rise trium- 
phant over earth and its philosophies, over hell and its 
damnation, over nonentity and all non-immortality. 

The basis of a consciousness of immortality sleeps 
in the longings and in the desires of human souls, and 
here also is found the only sure and indestructible ba- 
sis of Spiritualism. All men and all women possess 
the means that shall develop the conscious evidence 
of immortality, and to all, without any exception, the 
means shall be consciously available. 

" # # =& Human souls 
Have diverse forms and features ; 
All are lovely ; different offices and strengths ; 
Powers, orders, tendencies ; * * * 
Different glories and delights, are all immortal. 
* # Perfect from God they came, 
And in holy exellences have various beauties. 
God's love shall lift them all to heaven." 



THERE ARE NO EVIL SPIRITS. 

Broadly and unreservedly I do declare that I know 
nothing of the existence of evil spirits anywhere in 
God's creation. All spirits are good, because immortal. 
A soul, though buried in the densest darkness of human 
woe 5 has God within ; has in its nature seeds of eter- 
nal life; of infinite progression; of angel beauty; of 
celestial holiness. Shall a baby be called " evil " be- 
cause it is not born a man ? Shall a spirit be called 
"evil" because it begins low in the scale of human 
progress, and necessarily in darkness treads upon the 
lower rounds of the ladder of eternal progress first) as 
God has wisely ordered ? 

Do not fear " evil " spirits, my friends. I tell you, as 
a truth of God that cannot be disproved by man, that 
no spirit will, or can, come to us, to influence us, that 
is beneath ourselves ; that is " wickeder " than we are. 
We may as well, and better, be afraid of ourselves. 

We have already seen enough of spirit, to know that 
attraction is the governing power of spiritual existence. 
Like seeks like in the great spiritual universe of God, 
forever. 

Would we drive an "evil" spirit away that ruffles 
the waters of our external life ? We may as well at- 
tempt to banish the deepest longings of our souls from 
our existence. 

The " evil " that we see in the things around us, in 
spirits, is but the reflection of ourselves in the mirror 



130 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

of creation. We are always pretty good ourselves — 
or think we are. Antagonism, enmity, evil intents and 
purposes we see manifested in so-called evil spirits, is 
but the shadow of ourselves. If we have not learned 
this fact, we shall surely find it in a future lesson of our 
spiritual education. And when this fact becomes a 
part of our intelligence, we may bid farewell to all the 
fear we have of evil spirits. 

We have so much confidence in our own goodness, 
that when we learn that the evil in the world is but the 
real character of ourselves reflected, we shall cease to 
believe in its existence. A very susceptible clairvoyant 
said to me, a few months since : — 

" I see an innumerable host of devils around you. 
Why, they frighten me ! As far as my spirit-eyes can 
reach through yonder interminable avenue, filled in 
perfect order, I see hosts on hosts, legions on legions 
of devils, of evil spirits. Every one of them has an 
eye fixed on you. Why, what are they going to do 
w T ith you ? They will surely destroy you ! Hold a 
moment ! I see their intentions. They all look kindly 
and pleasantly upon you. I can now read their hearts. 
Every one is your friend. They only wait your bid- 
ding. They will do you any thing you ask them to do. 
They are kind to you, and ever will be, because you 
are not opposed to them, and never can be. I cannot 
sq£ existing in your soul an effort to resist one of them; 
but you are kind to them, and this kindness overcomes 
what at first seemed to me evil in them ; and in 
their natures I can see an unmeasured willingness, and 
a power, too, for the accomplishment of the mightiest 
purposes for human good. I cannot now see an evil 
design or desire in one of them. How mighty for good 
shall this almost infinite host of beings be ! As I now 
see them, they are good — they are all beautiful. Hold 
again ; I now discover that these legions before me 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 131 

are exactly like the spirits of men and women who 
now live on earth, and it is only my own vision that first 
made them look so dark and devilish. How beautiful 
each one now appears to me ! " 

I must confess that I have just as much confidence 
in these spirits, w T ho appear as they are, as I have in 
the spirits who make loud proclamations about being 
very high up in the spheres. I have known spirits who 
belonged to the " seventh sphere," get very angry 
when their highness was doubted. Touch the dignity 
of any high spirit (I mean professedly high), in the 
form or out of it, and the spirit loses his temper. 

I have seen many spiritual realities, in visions, so 
called (doubt it, if you please — it matters not), and 
if there be such a thing as high in spiritual things, the 
highest is the humblest — the highest is the lowest ; and 
T am forced to the conclusion that the w r ords, " the 
high," and " the low," " the evil," and " the good," as 
applied to infant human souls on earth, and to their 
guardian spirits, are the veriest phantoms of spiritual 
infancy, that must fade away in the light of maturer 
spiritual growth. 

There is a great deal of common sense in these 
obsessing " devils," as they are called. They have 
dropped the airs of self-righteousness themselves, and 
are making others do the same. They are better edu- 
cated in spiritual things than the man is who feels holy 
himself, and says, " In the name of God I command 
you devils to depart." 

According to my experience with men, I have been 
able to draw ten times as much real benevolence, real 
kindness, and real goodness, from the practical lives of 
men who were called " devilish bad," as I have from 



132 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

men who believed that they were almost as good as 
Christ. Bat I doubt not that one is as good as the 
other. I fail to find in practical, every-day life, merit 
in one balanced by demerit in another ; good in one 
balanced by bad in another. All are good ; the spirits 
that guard and influence men are always like the men 
they influence. 

Evil is a phantom always to be rendered in the first 
person and singular number, but always is rendered, by 
those who see it, in the second or third person and 
olural number. 

What you call evil spirits, all men kneel to and 
swear they don't. Evil spirits — according to your defi- 
nition of evil spirits — move the world and hold hu- 
manity. Lucifer says : — 

" Have I not all the honor of the earth 1 " 

"Would you touch a spring to advance human prog- 
ress, speak, a friend in soul, to the army of a legion 
of devils, as you please to call them, utter the man- 
date with feelings en rapport with the love that eman- 
ated from the soul of Christ, and, simultaneously with 
the going forth of the mandate, the work is done. Lu- 
cifer has proposed the following plan of salvation : — 

"Wait till * * * * * 
Some angel comes and stirs your stagnant souls, 
Then plunge into yourselves and rise redeemed.' ' 

There are no evil spirits that come to influence us. 
Spirits like ourselves come and influence us for our 
good always, and they are never worse than we are, 
and we are always as good as we can be for the time 
we have existed. 



HARMONY OF SOUL THAT THE ALL- 
RIGHT DOCTRINE PRODUCES. 

" Bring out your balance ; get in man by man ; 
Add earth, heaven, hell, the universe ; that's all. 
God puts his finger in the other scale, 
And up we bounce a bubble. * * * " 

1 The world is perfect as concerns itself, 
* * O'er the meanest atom God reigns 
Omnipotent, as o'er the universe." 

" We are imbecile, * * * * * 
We see dark sides of things — sometime there must be light." 

Without any feeling of antagonism to views that 
may seem opposed to the views of this book, from the 
most sincere convictions of my soul, I affirm, that what 
we call sin and evil in human actions, is a necessity, 
and, being a necessity, it is lawful and right. The 
views of Horace Seaver, William Loyd Garrison, 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, Henry Ward 
Beecher, Spurgeon, E. H. Chapin, A. L. Stone, and 
Nehemiah Adams, and all doctrines, creeds, and opin- 
ions, all over the world, this book accepts as being 
true to the conditions that produce them. 

This subject is as vast as the universe ; it is as un- 
measured as infinitude. A clear view of this question 
of infinite good, covers all the beauty, a thousand times 
told, that the wildest imagination can conceive. It is 
in perfect harmony with the beautiful teachings of 
Christ, and all that is good and holy in the Church and 
12 



134 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

in all religions. It accepts every creed as being neces- 
sary to the condition that produced it. It is a plat- 
form on which all other platforms rest. It is a circle 
in which all other circles exist. It is in harmony with 
all evil; it sees all that is wrong and repulsive to the 
souPs higher longings, as being the effect of a means 
in the ordering of Divine Wisdom, for the production 
of the greatest possible good for humanity. It sees 
God in all his works ever manifest, replete in power 
and wisdom. It sees all the manifestations of life, 
both good and bad, as being the immediate effect of 
nature's laws — laws that were never broken, and never 
can be. It recognizes the latent germ of crime as 
meaning and potent as crime developed ; and the 
latent germ of goodness as powerful and weighty as 
goodness developed. It recognizes the elements of 
good and evil, in a low condition of human progress, 
as being inseparably blended, necessary and inevitable. 
It sees the manifestations of every human soul, whether 
good or bad, as being the necessary result of a certain 
condition, in which condition is to be found a natural 
cause that produced the good or bad action. It sees 
that, 

" # =x? # The weakest things 
Are to be made examples of God's might ; 
The most defective, of his perfect grace. " 

All ill, all woe, all curses, are only clouds that 
necessarily rise up and pass away, and 

" Every thing seems good and lovely and immortal ; 
The whole is beautiful ; and I can see 
Naught wrong in man nor nature, naught not meant. 
The world is but a revelation. All things 
Are God, or of God." 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 135 

Judas, the "traitor, was as faithful to the condition of 
his being as was St. John, the divine — each performed 
the mission assigned to teach, lawfully and truly. The 
lowest brick fills its place, and is useful in the wall 
often thousand other bricks, just the same as the high- 
est brick that caps the superstructure. In the architec- 
ture of God's great universe each human soul fills its 
place as designed by the builder. Every human soul 
is as a brick — no more, no less — in the mighty super- 
structure of the temple of Deity. 

Behind the holy deeds of Fenelon there existed nat- 
ural causes that produced them ; he could not help the 
manifestations of good. Behind the dark deeds of 
King Herod, the enemy of Christ, there existed natural 
causes that produced the wicked deeds of his life ; he 
could not help so doing. In Fenelon there is no merit; 
in Herod there is no demerit. God created both, and 
the laws of God governed both, one no less than the 
other ; each were true to the conditions of the life they 
lived ; there were causes existing, in each, for the deeds 
which each committed, which causes were in nature, 
were God's causes. So there is no laudation for Fen- 
elon, and no condemnation for Herod; there is no 
comparison made between the two ; no judgment to be 
instituted. Fenelon is the child of God ; Herod is the 
same ; each an heir of eternal life, and the blessings of 
God, that await them in the coming future. Fenelon 
is no nearer God than Herod is, for God is everywhere, 
and his laws govern every thing. 

That woman of shame and suffering that met Christ 
at Jacob's well, was just as near God before she 
preached Christ as she was after. The sufferings con- 
sequent upon her sins had prepared her soul to bios- 



136 WHATEVER IS, TS RIGHT. 

som in humility, and send forth its fragrance in + he love 
of Christ to humanity. She was the first preacher of 
the gospel of Christ, and she was a prostitute. 

I cannot say to the wretched sinner, to the rebel, to 
the criminal of darkest deeds, to the inebriate, the sen- 
sualist, the prostitute, the financier, or to the holy 
man — come with me and seek salvation; each and 
all are held in the hand of infinite Wisdom, Love, and 
Power, and so am I ; no one more, and no one less 
than another. There is no philosophy to be found in 
the doctrine of universal salvation, except it be in the 
all-right doctrine. 

Do the noblest desires of the soul want anybody to 
be unhappy forever ? No. All hell fades out of view, 
as the phantom of a dream, when the soul can see that 
all that God has made is right. 

The cup of bitterness we must drink as Christ did; 
we cannot keep it from our lips ; it is our Father's will 
that we should drink it, and our Christ's example ; it 
is for our good ; it is our passport to heaven. 

Your opinion, your creed is right to your soul, what- 
ever it may be ; it is the lawful effect of the condition 
of your soul ; it could not be otherwise with causes ex- 
isting there. Here is a doctrine that accepts not only 
opinions and creeds, but every deed of goodness and 
every deed of evil, as being necessary and right, that 
ever existed in the great family of humanity. It in- 
volves the elements of infinite forgiveness, of humility, 
which holds the soul on one level human brotherhood. 
It is in these views we catch glimpses of the dawning 
of that day, when " the wilderness and the solitary 
place shall be glad ; the desert shall rejoice and blos- 
som as the rose, and all shall see the glory of the Lord, 



WHATEVER 18, IS RIGHT. 137 

the excellency of our God.'" " The wayfaring man 
though a fool, shall not err in the way of holiness." 

Take all the teachings of the past in which the 
infinitude of God's power, wisdom, and love has 
been taught — in which universal salvation has been 
claimed — in which common sense and philosophy 

i have a place, and in which the teachings of Christ are 
made a reality — take the trash and fiction away that 
clouds them all, leaving only the reality, and the all- 
right doctrine stands forth a bold and palpable truth. 

Our life is God's life, and we feel it is immortal ; 
and in this feeling we have evidence. Our life is in- 
voluntary, and so is the growth and progress of the 
soul. Like little children we have fancied that we 
make our souls grow good or bad, that we make the 
condition of our future destiny, that we mould and 
shape, and deform or symmetrize the soul while in its 
wayward infancy by its childish babblings and prat- 
tling in church and in society for its future existence. 
But where is the hand of wisdom that made us ? No 
soul has ever fallen out of the hand of God, or ever 
can ; no law of nature has ever ceased to act, or ever 
will. We are held in the arms of infinite Wisdom 

i and infinite Power. Life's perturbations, its conflicts, 
and its sufferings, that come to us of what we call 

i evil, are lawful necessities, written in the volume of 

( nature, which volume is the statute book of the living 

i God. 

" Faith in God" is confidence in this power. " Char- 
ity " is the recognition in the goodness of God in every 

, thing. " Have faith in God." " Perfect charity covereth 

1 a multitude of sins." 
12* 

I 






138 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

" In these views we hold the key- 
To faith in God and charity/' 

No other views of life can bring to us faith in God and 
charity to man. 

We say that " fancy fools the world," and " evil sways 
humanity." Ten thousand strings make up the harp 
of life, and the skilful player sweeps them all in har- 
mony, and melody is the tune of his existence ; and 
heaven is everywhere, and everywhere is the place 
where God abides. The great musical instrument of 
God is all nature ; it is in time and tune, and from it 
the melody of heaven shall come forth to the soul 
attuned thereto — " Discord is harmony," then " under- 
stood." 

There is no noise in life that is not harmony to the 
soul that sees God in all things. The murmurings of 
distant waterfalls, and the murmurings and curses 
of humanity, are equally harmonious ; the sweet songs 
of angels, and the groans of agony, are musical notes 
in harmony, that flow from the vibrations of nature's 
harp-strings. All the sharps and flats, the high and 
low sounds in the scale of human life, blend in har- 
mony, blend in one, are inseparably connected and 
bound together, to make up the melody of life. God 
is in every note — no more in one than in another. 
All is beautiful, all is harmony to the soul that sees 
God everywhere. 

The groans of agony come of suffering, which is a 
chariot of speed that carries the soul rapidly to the 
gates of happiness, and then, how beautiful shall be 
the fruit of what we now call a curse. The suffering 
that produces groans makes humanity walk in the 
garden of angels sooner. How wise and loving is 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 139 

the power that directs the soul onward and upward 
in its flight from darkness to light, from suffering to 
bliss. 

I cannot doubt 

" That heaven is a place where pearly streams 
Glide over silver sands. " 

But it is gained by ten thousand conflicts to be first 
passed in the journey of life. These conflicts are the 
fruits of sin, and it is the decree of God that we pass 
through them. Every thing we call evil and sinful, is 
in time and place ; is the necessity of the condition 
where they exist ; created, governed, and directed by 
the hand of Infinite Wisdom. 

Tell me where the soul can stand, except it be where 
it sees every thing right, and forgive seventy times 
seven ? What is called the church of Christ forgives the 
murderer and the thief, not once, but by deeds of con- 
demnation and punishment, recriminate, reproduce the 
crime condemned. It is impossible for a man holding 
these views to forgive, by actual deeds, less than seventy 
times seven, if needs be, no matter what the deed. 

Tell me where a man can stand and resist no evil? 
Nowhere, except in the place where he stands when 
he sees no evil to resist. This doctrine sees every 
law of God in nature as being inevitable, unchange- 
able, and unalterable ; a necessity in its condition — 
wherever it may exist — high or low — in darkness as 
in light — ia what we call evil, as in what we call good, 
the same. 

Judge not, says Christ. No comparison can these 
views level upon men by saying that one is better 
than another. 

Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but 



140 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

lay up for yourselves treasures in that unseen world of 
spiritual existence. Take no thought for the morrow 
for what ye shall eat, drink, or wear, but seek to know 
the hidden laws by which those things are governed, 
and every desire is gratified thereby. Rest in the arms 
of trust. 

These are the precepts of Christ — enigmas to 
humanity, until the soul can see harmor y in all things, 
which unriddles them, and exposes their unfading, eter- 
nal beauty to view. 



OBSESSION. 

There is hardly a person, who has had much experi- 
ence in Spiritualism, that has not witnessed the un- 
pleasant effects of obsessions, which, in many cases, 
have proved very troublesome and painful. Hundreds 
and thousands of mediums have, in the course of their 
mediumship, encountered some of the sad experiences 
of obsession. None are free from the liability. Those 
who are called the purest, the highest and the holiest, 
in my experience, are more the subjects of obsession 
than those who are called less so. The best mediums 
have been oftenest and worst obsessed. There is a 
great aversion, on the part of mediums and their 
friends, to make public any cases of this kind, because 
it is and has been thought that they can exist only in 
a low spiritual development ; so that of only one case, 
perhaps, in a hundred that have occurred, the public 
have any knowledge. 

In relation to obsessions, the first and most impor- 
tant question to be answered is : What is the cause ? 
In the " cure " of any " evil," or any disease, the cause 
must be first removed. A burn cannot be cured until 
it is removed from the fire that produces it. Mr. Tiffany 
thinks that obsessions are caused by yielding control to 
the spirits. Here is only the effect — the thing pro- 
duced. The cause lies back of this. Entrancement 
has fallen upon humanity without will, desire, or invi- 
tation ; and innumerable well-attested instances have 



142 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

shown that enhancement has been produced without 
any knowledge of trance, or of spiritual manifestations; 
Little children and aged people have been seized with 
trance, who never sat in a circle, or had any knowledge 
of a spiritual manifestation ; and thousands of trances 
have been produced, contrary to the volition of the me- 
dium, and in spite of all efforts to the contrary. 

An instance of this kind took place in a Spiritualist 
convention in Plymouth, last year. Miss Lizzie Do- 
ten, one of the best mediums, affirmed publicly, that 
no spirit, even an angel from heaven, should control her 
organism independent of her own will. Subsequent 
to this, in the presence of many hundred persons, a 
spirit gained perfect control, and caused her to tear her 
collar in shreds, break her combs, and crush her bonnet 
into a ball not larger than a teacup. This work of the 
spirit proved excessively mortifying to Miss Doten, 
when her consciousness was restored. It was done, as 
the spirit declared, to show that mediums have no will 
independent of spirit-power. I am aware that the 
world might say Miss Doten deceived in this matter, 
and did the whole thing of her own volition. Miss 
Doten declares that there was no volition of her own 
in this act, and she is a woman of unquestioned integ- 
rity ; and if there has been a life of spotless purity 
lived on earth, the past life of Miss Doten well merits 
that reputation. This instance of the superiority of 
spirit-power over the human will, is but one of many 
that has come within my limited observation. 

My experience in Spiritualism forces the conclusion, 
daily, more and more, that mortals have intrinsically 
no control over spiritual influences that are ever acting 
upon humanity. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 143 

Can a medium allow, or not allow, herself to be con- 
trolled by spirits ? She may think she can, as did Miss 
Doten. She may will, and think her will is potent, 
when it is only spirit-power acting in concert with her 
desires. The general manifestations of Spiritualism 
contradict the assertion that a medium's will can con- 
trol spirit-power. What is, then, the cause of obsession ? 
The hidden truths that underlie the whole subject of 
Spiritualism we know but little of as yet ; and the 
great and beautiful truth that shall reveal to us the 
fact, that all evil is a fruitful means of good, though it 
has been hidden in darkness, now stands up for human 
consideration in the light of spiritual development. 
Self-reliance is the cause of entrancement ; but self- 
righteousness is the cause of obsession. Both self-reli- 
ance and self-righteousness are bred in the bones of 
humanity, and nature alone shall carry man from the 
development of self-reliance and self-righteousness, to 
a higher development where men are conscious of the 
existence of, and shall rely upon an unseen Power. 
What shall be done when a medium is obsessed? 
\ We say, remove the cause. How ? By natural growth. 
Obsessions are natural ; they are the legitimate effect 
of a natural cause; which effect becomes a new cause 
for the destruction of self-righteousness, of self-reliance 
— they bring humanity to humility — to a universal 
I brotherhood. Greater good and greater beauty shall 
1 be developed from out obsessions, than from spiritual 
communications called the highest, the purest, and the 
holiest. 

What shall we do with a case of obsession when 
the medium is suffering agony, and death is even 
threatened ? We have living hearts to exercise, made 



144 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

to beat in sympathy and in love for good spirits, and 
for evil spirits too. Can love and sympathy fail to fill 
their missions ? Both love and sympathy can see 
through the phantom of self-excellence and self-righte- 
ousness, and reach out to naked souls the offerings of 
affection ; and the response is not antagonism, but 
affection. "We have reason, too, to be exercised. Let 
us, in our feeble spiritual development, be truthful to 
the spirit Obsessing, and not say to him, Come up from 
the darkness that you are in, to the light that we are 
in ; but rather let us be conscious of our own condi- 
tion, and say to the spirit, Take our hands, and lead us 
from the darkness that surrounds us, to the light that 
you possess. Let us remember that it is folly to try to 
cast a mote from the spirit's eye, when we have a 
beam in our own. Meet an obsessing spirit in the 
clouds of self-righteousness, and he will act very bad, 
and do much mischief, and befool us ; meet him on 
the platform of common sense and reason, and he will 
meet us as a man. 3?ake off the airs and phantoms of 
self-superiority in religion and spiritual goodness, and 
obsession will cease forever. 



OPINIONS OF OTHERS AND REMARKS. 

Letter from Justin Lillie. 

u Brother A. B. Child, — Among the contributors 
to the Banner of Light, your name often appears. 
I read your remarks with interest, though, 1 must 
confess, some of your ideas are new to me. You 
say all evil is a means of the soul's development in 
progression. If I fathom your meaning, you claim 
that man is not to blame for his deeds ; that he cannot 
help acting as he docs act. I gather from what you 
say that man, in consequence of being low in the 
scale of mortality, cannot help lying or stealing, and, 
if in a still more degraded state, he cannot help taking 
the life of his brother man. Would you have it, then, 
that man is not accountable for his vile or sinful acts ? 
Or would you have it that the blame lies in allowing 
himself to get into such a state of mind that he cannot 
help murder, rapine, arson, slander, hypocrisy, theft, 
and the like ? It seems, if we place our hands in the 
fire, they will burn, and we shall feel the smart. If 
we strike the God of heaven and earth and all created 
things, shall we not feel pain as the result? Shall we 
not feel pain, also, if we strike our brother man, who is 
made in God's image ? Shall we not feel pain if we 
violate any of the divine requirements ? 

I want you should write me, and explain particularly 
in regard to the foregoing." 

I doubt not that the questions that have come up in 

your mind are the questions that a thousand have 

silently asked on the subject that now agitates the 

minds of all who love the truths of modern spiritual 

13 



146 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

revelation ; viz., the question of the existence of what .4 
called evil. 

I will answer your questions the best I can in a few 
words. You ask, " Is evil a means of the development 
of the soul ? " I cannot reasonably and philosophi- 
cally give but one answer to this question ; viz. : What 
we call the evil deeds of men, are the legitimate effects 
of the souPs development ; what we call the good 
deeds of men are the same. The soul is mightier than 
the effects that fall from its growth, and is, conse- 
quently, not governed by what it produces. The soul 
is governed by the unseen currents of God's love ; is 
fed by streams of spirit-influx, unseen by mortal eyes, 
coming from a source above itself. The soul is ever 
living, ever active, ever growing, ever developing, un- 
der this unseen influence. In the past we have be- 
lieved that what the soul produces — viz., good deeds 
and bad deeds— influenced its development, and in so 
doing we have only taken an effect for a cause. The 
deeds of every human soul, whether good or bad, are 
the effects of the development of the soul ; lawfully, 
and perfectly in keeping with the conditions of the 
soul that produced them, which deeds are neither a 
means that can develop the soul, nor a means that 
can retard its development. The soul, we say, is 
above the material world ; it is immortal ; if so, it can- 
not be influenced by the material world ; it cannot be 
influenced by doctrines or beliefs, by earthly teachings 
or earthly actions. 

You say, " If I fathom your meaning, you claim that 
man cannot help acting as he does act, and is not to 
blame for his acts." I mean precisely this : no law of 
nature can be controverted, stayed, altered, or broken. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 147 

There is no human deed without a cause, and no cause 
that is not grasped by a law of nature. 

There is a power above the human soul over which 
the soul has no control. That power gave it existence 
and continues its existence. Let that power cease to 
act and the soul's existence ceases. The soul did not 
conceive itself, or give itself birth ; neither does it sus- 
tain itself or continue its existence. We must ac- 
knowledge that there is a ruling hand in human life, 
as there is in all life ; that hand sustains, supports, 
directs, and guides us, and 

" In each event of life how clear 
That ruling hand .we. see." 

Who made the soul with its conditions ? and who 
made the laws that govern it? We acknowledge that 
God did these things, and that he is everywhere, and 
is all-wisdom, all-power, and all-love. If these be the 
attributes of God, what can exist outside of himself? 
Man neither creates his condition nor the laws that 
govern his condition. God holds every man in his own 
*hand, more surely and lovingly than a mother holds 
her infant babe to her bosom. A divine hand made 
human conditions, and a stern demand of nature makes 
every man do that he does — act as he acts — and a 
higher, truer condition of human life will not see or 
attribute any blame to the so-called evil actions of 
men ; charity accepteth all things ; believeth all things. 
There surely is a point of progress to which the soul 
will attain, wherefrom it shall see no blame ; it shall 
know no condemnation; then it shall see more of God 
than it now does in its earlier existence ; then it will 
see the hand of God in hell as palpably as in heaven ; 



148 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

in what is called low life, as necessary as Jn what is 
called high life — in darkness as in light. The pure in 
heart shall see God everywhere. When we are men 
and women grown in spirit, we shall not condemn the 
infancy of our existence. The soul comes up through 
all the gradations of human development, from the 
worst evil to the highest virtue, in its progress. When 
it has passed the temptation of an evil, its blame and 
condemnation for the commission of that evil in others 
ceases — not before. It is then a man sees the hand of 
God in an evil ; and it is no longer an evil in its con- 
sequences to him ; for he has gained by natural growth 
a power over it, and his charity for those who commit 
it is perfect. 

" You speak of lying, stealing, murdering, and other 
heinous crimes, and ask if man is to blame for commit- 
ting them." Where shall we go for authority on this 
subject? Let us go to the volume of nature — the 
truest word of God revealed to humanity. Turn over 
her pages of truth, and what do we read there, in an- 
swer to this question ? Where shall we find in the 
whole volume of this gigantic book, fresh from the 
hand of God, the chapter of blame and responsibility ? 
Nowhere, nowhere ! It is not there. 

" # # # Each moss, 
Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank 
Important in the plan of Him who framed 
This scale of being ; holds a rank which, lost, 
Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap 
Which Nature's self would rue. 

Is there blame because these things are lower than 
human intelligence ? — are lower than the purity and 
wisdom, the beauty and love of angel life ? No, there 



WHATEVER ISj IS RTGHT. 149 

15 no blame. Then, if there is no blame here, there 
certainly is no blame for lower grades of human in- 
telligence, compared with higher — for lower condi- 
tions of morals, compared with higher conditions of 
virtues. 

We turn to the page on which are written the crimi- 
nal deeds of human beings, and we find there is not one 
deed committed without a natural cause, every deed 
of which cause is a natural effect; and no effect in 
nature is produced contrary to her laws ; consequently, 
there is recorded no blame, no responsibility for a de- 
fault in the Bible of nature, anywhere to be found. 

Crime belongs to a low condition of material life, and 
every manifestation of crime is a lawful effect of the 
condition in which its causes exist. All the darker, 
lower steps on the ladder of human progress every soul 
has passed, or will pass in some manifestation of life. 
But in so doing, crime, with every one, may not be ulti- 
mated in physical deeds, to be tangibly perceived. Yet 
the power to commit these crimes that humanity is heir 
to, is possessed, or will be, in the lower, darker degrees 
of human existence, by every one. 

You ask if the criminal is to blame for allowing him- 
self to get into such a state of mind that he cannot 
help committing crimes ? For every condition existing 
in human life there have been causes of sufficient 
power to produce them ; and these causes have lain 
back beyond the reach of every criminal. 

The light of science now enables an expert phrenol- 
ogist, aided by anatomy and physiology, ae he goes 
through the wards of a state prison, to tell to a posi- 
tive certainty what the criminal deeds of each prisoner 
are. He can tell, too, if tfiey are virtually innocent of 
13* 



150 WHATEVER IS. IS RIGHT. 

the crime for which they were sentenced. He car. tell 
unmistakably, as has been done in many cases recently, 
the prisoner who has committed rape, murder, theft, 
arson, revenge, etc. All this he tells by the tempera- 
ment 4 f the prisoner, and the formation of his brain 
and its developments ; the brain is a natural develop- 
ment ; it is formed by nature, and it grows by the in- 
flowing of nature's unseen currents. 

Before a child is born, it has the direction and the 
latent power of its destination already created ; and a 
man will follow the bent of his natural inclinations in 
defiance of all the hideous phantoms that what is 
called religion can paint before his vision. A man is 
natural, and he follows nature in his spirit, in spite of 
all that human lips can utter; and he cannot help so 
doing. Man runs as naturally to do the deeds of human 
life that he does do, as the stream runs on its course to 
the place of its destination, obedient to the laws of na- 
ture. The stream may meet obstructions, and be turned 
a little in its onward course, and so may man, but both, 
governed by unalterable laws, tend onward, to their 
destination. 

"Where lies the blame in the poor criminal, for that 
condition of life that made him commit crime ? I 
know no blame. God has made him what he is, and 
if his chains make him ache and suffer, I would to 
God that my sympathy was big enough to make me 
ache an$ suffer too, until his chains are broken. For 
the crinimal I know no demerit, and for the virtuous I 
know no merit. If the seeds of holiness have been 
planted in my soul, O God, I pray that they may bud 
and bloom in compassion for the criminal, and not 
in blame or condemnation for him. 



IS RIGHT. 151 

Efforts to do good are, to me, beautiful, pleasant, 
and delightful, and the conflicts of sin are as painful 
to me, and are as unpleasant to my longings for hap- 
piness, as to you, my dear brother ; but I desire to see^ 
life as it is, created and held by an unseen Hand, that 
worketh out good forever. I desire to speak of things 
as they are ; to recognize the hand of God in all, not 
in part, of his works, and to have faith in his wisdom, 
power, and love ; to have confidence that we are chas- 
tised for good ; and without this chastisement of what 
we call evil, a means is wanting in the plan for the ful- 
filment of the great purposes of life. 



Letter from S. S. W., Milton, Wis. 
This letter was addressed to the Banner of Light 
and published under the head, " A. B. C" 

" It is not particularly concerning the first three char- 
acters of the English alphabet that we propose to dis- 
course, but of that which they sometimes represent. 

" Some men's names are indicative of the relation 
they occupy to truth. There is no philosophical, meta- 
physical, or spiritual reason for this, unless we believe 
that a species of nomancy, or rather ariolation, has had 
something to do with individual destiny and the selec- 
tion of cognomens ; nevertheless, there often seems to 
be a striking coincidence between the nominal signifi- 
cance and the logical or ethical position of some indi- 
viduals. If it were not for the many intolerable blun- 
ders she makes, one might almost believe that nature, 
peering into the future, adapts her handiwork to the 
title by which it is to be distinguished. 

" But enough of this mere persiflage, since so many 
have had their inky fling at its subject. 

u A theory is much talked of in the columns of the 
Banner, and is urged with a considerable array of anal- 
ogous and, apparently, logical arguments, that evil is 






152 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

a normal manifestation ; not, as some of this theory's 
opposers charge, that there is no evil, — that what we 
call evil is in reality good and right, but that it is one of 
the necessary conditions of the soul, and ultimately 
leads up to light and truth. 

" The sum and substance of the analogy so often 
cited, in some one of its many forms, by the advocates 
of this theory, is this — that Nature, acting through 
the soul as she does through the physical body, ejects 
its bad humors — evil — as the latter does the infec- 
tion of small-pox, or scarlatina, by the eruptive efforts 
at the surface, which we call evil, or wickedness. The 
analogy is drawn well enough, but not deep enough ; 
else would the position of A. B. C. be first in the al- 
phabet of true philosophy, as well as in that on the 
first page of the spelling-book ; but since every mani- 
festation of evil only tends to make its author more 
prone to sin, rendering him less able to resist tempta- 
tion, dragging him down to a level with the crimes 
themselves, it follows that he who preaches i whatever 
is, is right/ lacks logic in the theory, and often meets a 
flesh-and-blood proof of its inconsistency in practice. 

" Following the same analogy, only a little deeper, 
there are other ways by which the physical body rids 
itself of morbific matter, than by 'critical determina- 
tion to the surface,' as the medical savans would say. 
While acknowledging that this determination to the 
surface is a method of purification, and that it is per- 
fectly proper to institute a comparison between the 
physical and the spiritual processes, it is claimed that 
the violent ' determination ' method is not only not the 
best, but is among the crudest ever adopted by nature. 
Our common mother works faithfully and conscien- 
tiously, but she works in the dark, and her physical 
manifestations are not always of the highest or best 
character. Reason is needed to direct her action, and 
hence the rational endowment of man. 

"Man's physical body is perhaps the most perfect type 
of ihe higher existences of which we can take cogni- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 153 

zance through the medium of our physical senses, and 
whatever process of development or purification in the 
former is evidently the most perfect, also approximates 
nearest to the development process of the latter. 

" Inasmuch as the most perfect method of bodily pu- 
rification is not violent and eruptive, but quiet and im- 
perceptible, it is natural to conclude that the same 
process in the spiritual nature is not by outbursts of 
grossness and wrong, but by the silent elimination of 
evil, and the assimilation of elevating influences — its 
still out-reachings after the true, the beautiful, and the 
good, by its energetic struggles to resist temptation, to 
know and do the right, and to avoid the wrong. 

" If the A.-B.-C. doctrine is correct, let it be sounded 
forth, for truth is better than error at all times, — A. B. 
C. to the contrary notwithstanding, — and will eventually 
supersede, as we verily have faith ; but if the idea that 
evil is one manifestation of God is lame in its logic, 
disastrous in its effects on the race, and tends to lower 
the standard of moral virtue in the world, it is time it 
was examined. It is illogical and improbable, because 
it robs man of all agency, and implicates the all-pure 
Father in the lowest and meanest manifestations of 
wickedness. It throws off all restraint from those who 
fully believe it; for who, of those inclined to sin and 
sensuality, would care to what depths of pollution they 
sank, if they felt that they were impelled thereto by a 
wise and good Creator, for some of his beneficent pur- 
poses? Even admitting that it may be true, it is evi- 
dent that the world is far from being ready for it. Our 
private belief is, that A. B. C. is as much beyond the 
truth as some of his opposers are behind it ; that the 
true position lies, as it often does, between the two ex- 
tremes. 

" It remains for rational minds to draw the distinction- 
line, each to his own satisfaction, remembering, with all 
diligence, that every soul must act up to its own high- 
est conceptions of truth and right, if it would grow into 
the perfect stature of true manhood. s. s. w." 



154 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

In answer to this very handsome letter, I cannot but 
express my admiration for the writer's manly treatment 
of the subject, though he is somewhat opposed to my 
views. His objections to the doctrine, " Whatever Is, 
is right," are the objections which I know a great 
many have, and for this reason I will answer those 
objections. My brother says: — 

"Since every manifestation of evil only tends to 
make its author more prone to sin, rendering him less 
able to resist temptation, dragging him down to a level 
with the crimes themselves, it follows that he who 
preaches 'whatever is, is right,' lacks logic in his theory, 
and often meets a flesh-and-blood proof of its inconsist- 
ency in practice." 

Such has not been my experience in life. My " evil" 
deeds have been as large and as numerous as the " evil " 
deeds of any one. I cannot deny that the ability to re- 
sist temptation after the commission of the first " evil " 
deed is lessened, and perhaps after the second, third, 
etc. But when I have followed and obeyed my desires 
in the direction of so-called evil deeds, sooner or later 
I have found them cloyed and satisfied, and I have 
turned away, and new desires have led me to seek that 
which we call good. The resistance of temptation has 
never changed my desires from " evil " to " good." De- 
sires are natural, and will have their run ; and I do not 
deny that the resistance of temptation is just as natural 
and is legitimate, in a certain condition of the soul's 
progress. Temptation is only a conscious desire of 
the soul; it is lawful and right, and the "crimes" com- 
mitted in consequence are only effects of natural de- 
sires ; they are the effects of the soul's life, the soul's ac- 
tivity ; they are only the refuse matter of earthly love 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 155 

falling off from the soul, and by them the soul cannot 
be injured, any more than a tree is injured by the falling 
of its leaves in autumn. The tree still lives to again 
send off the emanations of beauty peculiar to itself; it 
is not dragged down to a level with its decaying foli- 
age. The soul produces desires, and these desires pro- 
duce the manifestations of life that our sensuous eyes 
behold in material, human existence. It is with these 
i sensuous eyes that we see evil, wrong, conflict, and in- 
i harmony, manifested by the power of unseen life, in 
1 matter. These evils that we behold are only the natu- 
k ral effects of the soul, and fall from the soul like the 
leaves from the tree ; the soul is the real life. 

The " logic " of matter is a feeble thing, for to mat- 
ter alone it belongs. " Flesh-and-blood proof" is no 
abiding evidence of soul-realities, for such proof, like 
flesh and blood itself, changes and falls, and again re- 
turns to the elements from which the powers of the soul 
have drawn it. 

I do not deny that, to sensuous, limited vision, the 
manifestations of human life appear wrong ; it is right 
and necessary that they should so appear. It is this 
natural consciousness of wrong that produces the re- 
sistance of temptation; the resistance of evil — to 
which condition this resistance is good and necessary, 
not evil or wrong. But to the vision of the soul; to 
its deepest conscious convictions, I boldly declare that 
every manifestation of human life in matter, from the 
bright and the beautiful to the dark and the damned, are 
infinitely significant of good. I do not utter this from 
evidence gathered from flesh and blood, nor with the 
pirishing logic that belongs to material intelligence: 



156 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

the evidence is intuition ; the truth is eternal ; a part 
of the soul's immortality. 

I would not say that the " soul's outreaching after 
the true, the beautiful, and the good, and its energetic 
struggles to resist temptation ; to know and do the 
right, and to avoid the wrong," and I do not say that 
this is " wrong ; " I would rather say that this is emi- 
nently right ; but I am forced to the conclusion that 
this is an outreaching for the glories of the material- 
world, for the reason that the glories of the spiritual 
are developed, unseen, by natural growth out of the 
soul, fed by an unseen influx from the spiritual world, 
independent of human will^ and above human control — 
above the influence of matter. 

Some will say, in answer to this, Then you would 
make man an automaton ? No, I would not ; I would 
let man be just what he is. Man is just what he is, 
and he will be just what he will be, in defiance of all 
human preaching, and all efforts at human restraint. 
Human desires run out from a natural fountain through 
natural channels, to do the deeds of life, and no human 
effort can stay or alter them, no more than all human- 
ity, with one combined effort, can stop the sun from 
shining. This mighty unseen power of the soul, that 
inevitably produces all the actions of men, we have yet 
to recognize. We yield to it in blindness, and think 
that we do not 

My brother says: — 

" If the A.-B.-C. doctrine is correct, let it be sounded 
forth, for truth is better than error at all times." This 
" doctrine " will be sounded forth, but it will never be 
accepted from the tongue of material philosophy ; it 
can be accepted only by the development of positive 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 157 

intuition in the soul that accepts it. When it is ac- 
cepted, the soul will ask for no schoolhouse logic, or 
no material proof; this " doctrine,' 7 when developed, is 
developed in the soul, by its own growth, positive, 
abiding, and eternal. It may, then, well be asked, for 
what do you write ? I answer, for the same material 
reason that others write. All writing and preaching is 
the effect of life, not a thing that affects the soul in any 
possible way. 

Who will be first to accept the truth of this doctrine ? 
It will not be the souls whose material covering wears 
the highest polish by earthly culture, earthly religion, 
and earthly training. Men of science, men of philoso- 
phy, men of religion, men of morals, men of conserva- 
tive principles, and habits of rectitude and justice, men 
of riches, popularity, and honors, are not the men who 
first will seize this heavenly truth. 'Tis not the man 
who " knows " that he is better than another man, who 
is conscious of self-excellence in this world's glories, 
who will be willing to recognize first the great level sea 
of human beings — the common level of a human brother- 
hood — the one great common household of God, every 
child of which is equally loved, equally cared for, and 
has an equal claim upon the estate of his or her Father 
by the will of that same Father. Such men, I say, in- 
stead of being the first to accept the doctrine, will, for 
a time, be its most bitter opposers. Who, then, will 
first accept this doctrine? The souls whose vigorous, 
natural growth has burst and broken the beauty of 
their material existence — the downcast and the out- 
cast, the afflicted and the chastened, the tearful and the 
bleeding, the naked and the hungry, the tciling slave 
and the bonded criminal, the despised and the rejected 

u 



158 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

— these humble flowers of God's own laws, whose 
love of earth is broken, are the first. Those who have 
rents and broken places in their garments of earthly 
love, who have naked spots upon their souls where the 
tendrils of angel-love can cling — such are the men 
and women who, by the power of intuition, shall first 
declare that God is right, and all that he has made is 
right. Such are those who blame not, condemn not, 
and whose charity accepteth all things. Such are the 
first who shall see God in all things. Such as these 
shall be the first out of whose souls the flower of in- 
tuition shall earliest unfold ; and the truth of these 
words shall be proved ; viz., " The last shall be first." 
The last in material glory shall be first in spiritual 
glory. 

Intuition ! — held for a time wisely in check by the 
logic and philosophy of matter, — O glorious intuition! 
All hail your bright and heavenly advent ! The 
mountain of material glory is barren to the flower 
of intuition. Out of the valleys of the earth, rich 
with the corruption and decay of matter, the flower 
springs spontaneously, and blooms in vigorous beauty. 

My brother claims that this doctrine 

" Is illogical and improbable, because it robs man 
of all agency, and implicates the all-pure Father in the 
lowest and meanest manifestations of wickedness. It 
throws off all restraint from those who fully believe it ; 
for who, of those inclined to sin and sensuality, would 
care to what depths of pollution they sank, if they felt 
that they were impelled thereto by a wise and good 
Creator, for some of his beneficent purposes ? Even 
admitting that it may be true, it is evident that the 
world is far from being ready for it." 

It may be illogical, and I rather think it is; for logic 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 159 

is only a property of material intelligence, a property of 
matter; and this doctrine, in silent power, rises up to 
disintegrate and dissolve matter, and with it, its change- 
able, uncertain philosophies. Human philosophy and 
human logic shall be buried in the same grave with 
earthly affections. I do not mean to say that logic and 
philosophy are not true and beautiful to their place and 
condition ; but I do say that they are things of earth, 
and will some time come up to maturity and fall back 
to dissolution. They are effects of the soul ; and it 
is the soul only, the beautiful soul, that rises above 
time and the decay of matter on the wings of immor- 
tality. 

This doctrine robs man of nothing ; it certainly 
does not rob him of his free agency, or any agency, for 
it fully accepts human agencies as necessities of condi- 
tions out of which they spring. It accepts every exhi- 
bition of human life as being perfectly and exactly in 
harmony with the cause that produced the effect. 

It does not implicate "the all-pure Father in mean- 
ness," for it recognizes the infinite goodness of God in 
every manifestation of his life, in all creation. It sees 
God in every thing. 

In regard to this doctrine throwing off restraint for 
the commission of deeds of evil, I boldly declare that 
so long as man needs restraint, he will never accept 
or believe this doctrine. Restraint is necessary and law- 
ful in its place, and so long as it is necessary and law- 
ful, so long will it exist. This doctrine accepts the 
legality of restraint no less than the legality of crime. 
Both are necessary, or else why did the infinite power 
of God show them to us ? 

That this doctrine throws off restraint, and gives un- 



160 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

bridled license to crime, is a favorite and almost uni- 
versal argument that a love of materialism brings 
against it. A man that needs the bridle of restraint, 
when he reads this doctrine, rises up with a burst of 
rage, and says, " Good God ! what an awful, damnable 
doctrine is this! Why, if I believed it, I would plunge 
headlong into all the crimes of licentiousness ; I would 
steal, lie, rob, murder, fight, and do every thing that I 
have a desire to do. Why, the man who utters such 
awful doctrine, should be branded with infamy, and the 
papers that publish such doctrine should be blotted out 
of existence ! " 

This man needs restraint a little longer, and he will 
certainly have it ; the laws that govern his nature de- 
mand it. His fear demands the resistance of evil, and 
resistance is right to his condition. This man is good, 
bat he is youthful in his spiritual development. 

But let us go a little further. Suppose that this 
man was inclined to sensuality, and in consequence of 
this doctrine, did not, at first care to what depths he 
sank in pollution. Let him obey his desires, and go 
on in such a course to his heart's content. How long, 
think you, before the fires of hell would drive him back? 
How long, think you, before the filth and fetor of such 
a life would satiate his desires, and nauseate his mate- 
rial life with disgust ? As it was with the prodigal 
son, so it would be with him. The prodigal's course 
was restrained by the laws of nature. 

Human desires will always find vent, sometime or 
somewhere, sooner or later, in darkness or in light, 
whether in keeping with human law, or against it, 
always in obedience to natural law — in spite of all 
pretence. 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 161 

All the manifestations that we call evil, have their 
payment " down" in pain and suffering, and it is na- 
ture that deals the " wages" out; and it is in wisdom 
and in justice that she measures the suffering for each. 
The measure is never too large or too small, but exactly 
meets the demand. A true hand, and a nicely balanced 
hand, too, is this hand of nature. A wise and benefi- 
cent hand, also, is this hand of nature. With infinite 
skill her fingers work out all the deeds of human life 
and all life. 

No human being loves suffering. No human being 
asks for or desires pain. You tell a man that suffering 
is soul-progression, and let him believe what you tell 
him, and also possess an ardent longing for progress, 
even then he will not voluntarily suffer. Nobody 
voluntarily plunges into pain. Human volition is 
against human suffering. The cup of bitterness hu- 
manity drinks from, but never by choice ; not even did 
Christ do this. It is in the ordering of nature that we 
must suffer ; it is the will of God, and " thy will, O 
God, not mine, be done." I know all is for good. 

Disease, accidents, earthly rents, breaks, and tears ; 
revenge, hate, cruelty, and oppression ; poverty, igno- 
rance and crime, with their endless retinue of miseries, 
are the antagonizing and necessary elements which ma- 
terial reason meets. It is this conflict that keeps the 
works of nature balanced up ; that stirs the sands of 
earth around the tender germs of eternal life that are 
planted in earth to bloom in heaven — he beautiful 
souls of women and men. 

Suffering, by human volition, it is neither enhanced 
nor retarded. It will come in one way or another by 
the hand of God himself in nature. And what we 
14* 



1C2 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

call evil deeds are always rewarded by suffering. These 
" evil " deeds are involuntary ; they come from natural 
desires. A deep examination of human life will prove 
this statement true. I think that evil deeds, so called, 
are the effect of an early expansion of the soul in mat- 
ter, that break earthly beauty, and free the soul sooner. 
This can never be voluntary, for pain and suffering our 
volition turns from ever. We cannot do more of evil 
than our inclinations lead us to; and we cannot do 
more of good than our inclinations lead us to do. 
There is an almighty power behind the curtain of ma- 
terial vision that moves humanity to do the deeds of 
life that humanity does do. 

And the day has come when this power begins to be 
recognized — this power of spirit-reality. And in the 
recognition of this power, all doctrines and beliefs, all 
writing and preaching, lecturing and loud praying, will 
come up to the " valley of decision," where all things 
of earth must come for judgment, and fall back to de- 
cay as being no longer useful to the soul that has cast 
them off. 

Do not fear, my brother, the influence of this or any 
other doctrine, for doctrines are only effects of the soul 
— are things of time — not properties of the soul's eter- 
nal life. 






Extract of Letter from Y. C. Blakey, M.D. 

" My brother, when I commenced reading your arti- 
cles on the subject of ' Whatever Is, is Right,' your 
boldness at first startled me ; but the more I read and 
reflect on them, the more I find my judgment acqui- 
escing in the position you have taken." 

I feel a sure confidence that all who are at first star- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIOHT. 163 

tied with the " all-right " doctrine will, on further reflec- 
tion, aided by an accompanying development of intui- 
tion find their judgment acquiescing in the beautiful 
truth. 



Extract of a Letter from E. Annie Kingsbury. 

" The philosophy, of ' Whatever Is, is Right,' incul- 
cated by you through the columns of the Banner of 
Light is to me very beautiful ; it is substantial, satisfy- 
ing, and divine. It is an elucidation of ideas which for 
four years I have boldly spoken to my friends in pri- 
vate, and you may be sure it now delights me to see 
them so ably presented and so widely circulated. This 
philosophy has done me much good ; it has sustained 
me in the midst of trials, terrible and protracted, and it 
will assuredly benefit every one who studies and ap- 
propriates it. In the name of humanity, let me thank 
you for the good you are doing. You are blessed al- 
ready with the possession of a peace and harmony 
of spirit to which many others are a stranger. Permit 
me to say, also, that I have conversed with others in 
this city (Philadelphia), who rejoice in the truths you 
advocate." 

Many beautiful souls like that of the above writer, 
here and there, all over the land, have already intuitive 
unfoldings that have aided, unseen, in the development 
of this doctrine A much larger number, I doubt not, 
than any one has thought. 



Extract of a Letter from " Maggie" 

" If all that is, is right, what objects have we to seek 
in life ? why should we endeavor to remove obstacles 
that lie in the way of the soul's progress ? " 

The writer of this question does not recognize the 
fact that our endeavor to remove obstacles that lie in 



164 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

the way of the soul's progress is a part of what is right 
in our existence, just as much as the obstacles that are 
thought to lie in the way of the soul's progress are in- 
cident to our existence. Both the obstacles that lie in 
our way, and the efforts to remove them out of our 
way, must be right, if both exist. The writer contin- 
ues: — 

" When we see an individual surrounded by bad in- 
fluences, degraded and suffering, in whom exists the 
elements of a noble nature — if we are conscious that 
all is right, we must say that his condition is right too, 
and let him grovel on, and sink deeper in degradation. 
Then what is fraternal love worth, if we cannot bene- 
fit our suffering brother ? " 

Seeing that every thing is meant to be as it is by 
an overruling Wisdom, does not stand between relief, 
between the manifestations of fraternal love, and hu- 
man suffering, and human degradation ; this doctrine 
does not claim that it is wrong to mitigate pain, or 
that it is wrong that there should be pain to mitigate. 
There is no manifestation of our earthly life more 
beautiful than efforts to relieve human woe. We 
know that woe exists, and for it there must be a cause, 
and when we see that cause, we shall see that in the 
end it is for good, that its existence, and its means of 
relief, are always twin-born ; both are lawful in crea- 
tion, both are right. So our efforts to relieve suffering 
are not lessened by a conscious c< nviction that suffer- 
ing is meant for good. Again, Maggie continues : — 

"If Dr. Child's cold doctrine of "all right" is true, 
what becomes of the beautiful theouy, that the very 
joys of the angels consist in elevating unto them 
se*ves those who are on a lower plane of being?" 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 165 

What is the work of life but a rising upward forever 
of the soul ? and for every step in the soul's progress 
there is existing a cause, there must be an agency. 
This doctrine of all right is not opposed to the holy, un- 
selfish work of angels, which is to this end — which is 
the immediate agency in the work of human elevation. 
The soul that can see angels doing this holy work, can 
also see the lawful cause of degradation that com- 
mands this work — can see every thing in the chain of 
cause and effect, from angel life to the lowest (if low 
in spirit there be) plane of human existence as being 
in time, in perfect tune — as being in perfect harmony 
in the reality of the spirit, and palpably see that all ap- 
parent discord in the physical world is perfect harmony 
in the spiritual world, which spiritual world pervades 
and produces the material world. 

This doctrine of " all right " does not dim the reality 
of angel existence, nor influence their holy mission to 
bring us to heaven. It magnifies both in the real con- 
ceptions of our souls. It may be that angels in wis- 
dom deal out suffering to us, and then sustain us while 
we endure it, for our advancement. 



A writer in the Spirit Guardian asks the following 
question : — 

" If there is no evil, Bro. Child, it is, of course, not 
right that man should be punished for any of his 
deeds, be they ever so bad; he may murder his fellow- 
man, and still be allowed to go at large ; to take the 
life of others and inflict a thousand wrongs upon his 
fellow-creatures. What shall be done with him ? 
Shall we try to make him better ? " 

I cannot claim that it is wrong for a man to be pun- 
ished for crime, for the reason that no deed is wrong. 



166 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

The criminal is punished, and suffers. I know no 
reason why this is not right; and I know no reason 
why the crime is wrong. Both crime and punishment 
are links in the chain of cause and effect, in the courses 
of nature ; they are legitimate to that condition of life 
that produces them. 

Every thing in creation is from the hand of the 
Creator. If man takes his brother's life, there is a 
cause in creation that makes him take it. If one na- 
tion slay another, there is a cause in creation that pro- 
duces the slaughter. There is no law broken thereby ; 
but the law of God in nature is fulfilled by the acting 
cause in spirit, that lies behind the deeds. 

The deeper we look into the causes of human ac- 
tions, the nearer we come to the conclusion that there 
is no distinction of merit and demerit to be instituted 
between the good man and the bad man, for the same 
stern and unalterable causes of nature impel both to 
action ; the same God of wisdom has created both, 
and holds both in his protecting hand of love. 

Prison-houses, court-houses, meeting-houses, school- 
houses, and state-houses, with their uses and purposes, 
are the lawful products of the spirit of man in a cer- 
tain condition of development ; and in the present con- 
dition of society they are necessary and right. 



One writer says : — 

"Dr. Child has an angle — a hobby which he rides 
into every thing. Dr. Child says that there is no differ- 
ence in things in this world." 

Nature, to me, has infinite variation. Things vary 
in form, in size, in density, in quality, in strength, in 
durability ; and this difference in things, which is even 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 167 

palpable to the dreams of a sleeping man, makes vari- 
ations in the things of creation which fill up life with 
unutterable beauty. 

If my brother means that I have an angle and a 
hobby which runs out to level the fiction of human dis- 
tinctions ; to take the starch out of self-righteousness ; 
to show how nonsensical and unmeaning, as applied 
to human souls, the words high and lotv, evil and good 
are, it seems to me he might indulge a sinner like me 
in running an angle, and riding a hobby, that differs 
somewhat from an angle and hobby of self-righteous- 
ness, of hell and damnation that has been ridden into 
every meeting-house pulpit, and into every school- 
house desk of education in the civilized world, and 
from thence has been driven into the hearts of the 
good people, from a period of time to which my mem- 
ory goeth not back. The hobby that makes one man 
better than another, in a spiritual sense, has been rid- 
den a great while by us all. Change is not detrimental 
to human progress, but is essentially an element of 
progression. 

Suppose that we get off from the old hobby of evil, 
that runs all its riders into the contentions of hell, to 
fight with angles as acute as the points of bayonets 
and pitchforks, and mount the hobby of " Whatever 
Is, is right," what is the consequence ? With the fleet- 
ness of thought and the surety of eternal truth, this 
hobby — if you please to call it a hobby — will bear 
us through all the beautiful gardens; through all the 
avenues of truth in God's creation ; and everywhere 
at out pleasure we may pick flowers of unfading fresh- 
ness from the provinces of God, in the eternal day- 
time of his love, forever. 



168 WIIATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

This is the hobby, and this alone, that shall carry 
humanity out from the darkness and sufferings of hell 
Each one must mount it and ride it for himself and 
herself. 

This little " hobby " horse of " all-right" we at first 
think is wanton, shy, coltish, dangerous. That day is 
coming when every man and every woman will in one 
voice declare, that this hobby is the gentlest and the 
kindest, the safest and the truest, the fleetest and the 
boldest " hobby " ever rode upon. But no man or 
woman will ever be lifted upon it by another ; will ever 
mount it till he or she does it voluntarily ; till by natural 
growth the soul is rid of the shackles of fear and the 
darkness of self-righteousness ; till the heart is purified 
from the love of matter sufficiently to see God in 
every thing. 



Letter from A. P. Mc Combs. 

" That there is a vast amount of evil in the world, 
and that the proofs of its existence are everywhere self- 
evident, is the almost universal belief of mankind. 7 Tis 
true, there are a limited number of persons who hold 
an adverse theory, and the writer concurs in the senti- 
ment, 'Nature has done all things well ;' and that all 
animated beings, and inanimate creation, are subject to, 
and controlled by, natural laws, and, indeed, form a 
part of nature herself; and, of course, it would be pre- 
sumptuous folly to suppose that nature could violate 
her own laws. Consequently, we contend that no ab- 
solute evil ever did take place in the whole history of 
the world. 

" God, as the Creator and Progenitor of the universe, 
infused and breathed life and motion into all things, 
from his own person, and has left the impress of his 
hand and mind on all his works, and so they all reflect 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 169 

their Author. And in no particular does the infinite 
wisdom of the Creator more strikingly shine forth, than 
in the great variety with which he has stamped every 
department of nature. 

" Narrow and unthinking minds will pronounce these 
views as the veriest nonsense and wildest folly ; and it 
is only the unprejudiced, philosophical, and comprehen- 
sive mind, that can fathom the subject in all its various 
bearings, and trace the beauty, harmony, and benefi- 
cence that pervade all nature, and reign throughout the 
entire universe. 

" Now we behold that man — related as he is, socially 
and fraternally, to his fellow-man and to all nature 
around him — is just precisely such a creature as he 
ought to be, physically, mentally, and morally ; and 
that without his inclinations, tastes, dispositions, feel- 
ings, wants, desires, and passions, he would be imper- 
fect. 

" We hear it asserted, in tones of despondency, that 
here we are subject to pain and toil; that here we 
must know sorrow and become acquainted with grief, 
doomed to disease and death; and we assert, that 
where there is no pain or toil, there is, of necessity, no 
pleasure or rest ; and if there were no sorrow or grief, 
the exhilarating influence of joy and gladness would 
never be felt; and without disease and death, there 
would be no health or life. If our physical nature did 
not require nourishment and food, and make its wants 
known , we could not partake and enjoy the luxuries 
which nature furnishes to supply those wants with that 
sweet relish we do.. If we were not susceptible to fa- 
tigue and weariness, how could we enjoy the refreshing 
influences of slumber and rest? And so it is with 
every feeling and faculty of man ; were it not so, we 
should be mere passive, stationary, lifeless substances. 

" For the purpose of illustrating our position more 
fully, we will take up the traits in the human character 
that are almost universally condemned. 
" Selfishness is everywhere denounced; but all will ad- 
15 



170 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

mit that we ought to possess the principle to a limited 
extent, in order to the protection, preservation, and com- 
fort of ourselves and those dependent upon us: and who 
is competent to mark the precise point to which our 
selfishness shall extend? We say no one, because the 
judgments of men disagree; and ever-varying circum- 
stances will render any fixed rule of action impractica- 
ble. Hence let this emotion in man's nature be gov- 
erned by opposing traits in his own character, or the 
sentiments of his fellows, and the laws of the land in 
which he lives. So it is with hatred. No sane man 
would desire its entire eradication from the human 
breast. Hatred and discontent are great auxiliaries to 
the advancement of the world. We hate and dislike 
men, customs, and deeds that are not compatible with 
our notions of right, and our influence controls and 
changes them to a certain degree. Discontent is sim- 
ply a desire to acquire more knowledge or happiness 
than we already possess, and has been prominently ex- 
hibited in all the great men that have left their mark 
in the world. 

"Revenge is a heaven-born principle that God has in- 
grafted in every living thing beneath the sun ; and all, 
from the huge mastodon of the forest and the mighty 
leviathan of the watery deep, to the smallest micro- 
scopic animalcule that floats through the air or sea, 
have their means and weapons of aggression and de- 
fence, and wise nature teaches them v/hen, where, and 
how to make use of them for their own safety and 
defence. 

" Revenge also holds up to the view of mankind the 
punishment that vicious acts merit and receive, and 
thereby checks, restrains, and prevents their too oft 
recurrence. 

" But, to sum up all, murder, according to general 
belief, is the highest grade of crime. Spiritualism has 
demonstrated the fact that man lives after he leaves the 
body. The destruction or decomposition of the body, 
and, in fact, all material substances, is necessary for 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 171 

the recuperation of nature, to enable her to reproduce. 
The existence of one part of creation depends upon 
the destruction of another. The life of one is brought 
forth and nourished by another's death. ' Big fish live 
on little fish.' Nature accommodates herself to all her 
wants. It is necessary for man's own existence and 
happiness that he should die. Man's life in the body 
is terminated variously, and we hold that he cannot die 
an unnatural death. Sometimes by pain and sickness, 
cold and heat, famine and gluttony, earthquakes and 
storms, wars and pestilence, and sometimes by the 
hand of the assassin. We challenge the world to 
prove that the ultimate good and happiness of a single 
individual has ever been blasted by any of these agen- 
cies that have deprived any of the human family of 
their earthly existence. We believe it is for their pres- 
ent and future good. This is especially apparent to be- 
lievers in the doctrine of departed friends returning as 
guardian spirits to watch over those left behind. 

"I will endeavor to answer the most prominent que- 
ries and objections usually put forth by believers in 
man's natural depravity, against the positions here as- 
sumed, as briefly and pointedly as I can. I am asked 
if I advocate and believe murder is right? and, if it is 
no crime, is it not wrong to punish the murderer, and 
folly to preach reformation to man, or endeavor to cor- 
rect his ways ? If the assassin is only acting in con- 
formity with the law^s of nature, which you say are 
right, how is it that guilt and fear take possession of 
him, and remorse causes him to fancy that his fore- 
head is stained with blood, and finally drives him to 
insanity or suicide? If your doctrines were pro- 
mulgated and universally embraced by mankind in 
their present state, would not every law, both human 
and divine, be disregarded and trampled upon, and vio- 
lence and crime, in all their most hideous forms, stalk 
forth unchecked, with a satanic smile of triumph upon 
their brutal lips, and run riot, until all would become 
maddened and frenzied with blood ; and every species 



172 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

of crime, at which the heart of humanity sickens and 
fears to contemplate, be perpetrated, and devastation 
and ruin overspread our happy land ; and from every 
corner of the globe, where now reigns comparative peace 
and order, be heard the waitings of unutterable woe ? 

" I answer, I do not advocate murder, neither do I 
believe it a positive evil; I judge the punishment or 
penalty affixed thereto. By the same law, it would be 
irrational to make an exception in favor of the crimi- 
nal. Nature regulates her government by wise provi- 
sions ; one act follows another in natural order. I 
believe it right and proper to preach and teach what we 
believe, and endeavor to reform our race, for the very 
reason that nature makes use of these means to accom- 
plish her purposes, and her own advancement ; there- 
fore, I do not consider that a Christ, a Mahomet, a 
Napoleon, a Wesley, a Washington, or a Beecher,are ex- 
ceptions in nature, or that they have lived in vain. Man, 
by nature, through education, the laws and opinions of 
the people among whom he lives, forms opinions in his 
own mind of right. If he acts contrary to those con- 
victions, nature, true to herself, will punish the actor, 
for his own benefit, as well as to deter him and others 
from going further than she wills. 

" Before answering the last query, permit me to di- 
gress a moment, in order that my ideas may be more 
fully understood. The varied and transitory character 
of nature is everywhere conspicuous ; she has adorned 
the earth with every conceivable color, and everywhere 
we behold her surpassing beauties. We behold the 
lofty mountains and broad valleys, the mighty forests 
and barren deserts, the bubbling fount and mighty 
ocean, the calm and the storm, summer's heat and win- 
ter's cold, sunshine and rain, night and day. And as 
the phrenologist decides in regard to a nicely balanced 
head, lhat the development of one organ rules another, 
we contend all heads are rightly balanced ; and indi- 
viduals, and even nations, may be considered as bumps 
on creation's cranium, where the fingers of the Deity 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 173 

move with unerring wisdom. The universe is a vast 
machine, guided by a master-hand ; and mankind, like 
unskilled mechanics looking at a complicated and per- 
fect piece of machinery, are not able, at present, to 
comprehend the whole, or know the design of all its 
workings or its parts. 

"All men are similar in their construction ; yet, among 
the many millions that inhabit the globe, no two can 
be found so much alike that they could not be dis- 
tinguished. We will have the active mind of the 
reader to determine the disastrous results that would 
inevitably ensue, in all the relations of life, if man's 
identity were lost. Therefore, if man's varied physical 
construction is necessary to his own well-being, it is 
equally so in regard to his moral, intellectual, and spir- 
itual composition ; hence every diversity of opinion 
prevails among mankind. We do not think, feel, be- 
lieve, and act alike; and, indeed, there is not to be 
found among the whole human race two persons whose 
opinions are precisely alike on all subjects ; therefore 
we rationally conclude that the principles we here 
inculcate will not be universally adopted. Centuries 
may elapse before the world will be far enough ad- 
vanced to receive them ; but when — if ever — it does, 
the most happy results must certainly follow. 

" But I might give a more practical answer, by saying 
that all the vicious, degraded, and criminal of our 
country, disbelieve the principles here laid down, while 
those believing them (as far as my knowledge extends) 
are persons whose characters ought to be held up by 
all Christendom, as patterns worthy of imitation by all 
lovers of virtue, good order, and peace. It is there- 
fore apparent that the prevalence of these sentiments 
would banish from the earth ignorance, and intolerance, 
its handmaid, which is certainly an end to be devoutly 
wished for." 



The following is from the pen of my good brother, 
Warren Chase: — 



174 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

" I rejoice to see so much written on this subject, 
good and evil, and to hear so much said. Agitation 
of thought, scepticism, and criticism are signs and be- 
ginnings of knowledge and wisdom — not the fear of 
the Lord, as has often been said. When I see an ar- 
ticle on good and evil, or either of them, I first look at 
the name of the author, to see whose spectacles I am to 
read through. ****** 

"Not only do nations have different standards of 
good and evi 1 , and all religious, moral, social, and po- 
litical societies, but individuals in the same society 
often differ as widely as societies. What is good and 
what is evil, are questions which no God's Word Reve- 
lation, or scientific demonstration, has ever answered ; 
therefore every speculating and theorizing mind answers 
for itself, or for as many others as will accept the 
answer, instead of thinking out answers for themselves. 

" This is the basis of such societies as have organiza- 
tions to carry out what they call good, and to resist 
what they call evil. ***** 

" Thus I judge of good and evil, but only for myself. 
I will not condemn my neighbor; I am not his judge, 
but I am my own?' 



A western correspondent says: — 

" I think Dr. Child is in an error when he says all 
writing and preaching are the effects of life, not things 
that affect the soul in any possible way. This I can* 
not comprehend.' 7 

That there is a cause for writing and preaching, no 
one will deny. This cause exists in the soul of man, 
and produces writing and preaching. So writing and 
preaching are the effects of the soul — are the effects 
of life. My convictions have forced me to take the 
hitherto untrodden ground, viz., That what the soul 
produces cannot in any possible way influence it, either 



WHATEVER IS, IS RTGHT. 175 

to advance or retard its progress. All the manifesta- 
tions of human life that we see with our earthly vision, 
are effects of human souls — are the products of causes 
which we cannot see except with the sight of intuition. 
We have judged of the soul by the standard of its 
effects, which effects are changeable, uncertain, unen- 
during, and capricious. From these effects we can 
know but little, if any thing, of the soul's reality. Our 
knowledge of the soul has been based on a standard of 
material things, and, like material things, is changeable 
and perishing. Intuition goes deeper and reaches 
causes that produce those physical effects ; and in 
these causes exists reality that is enduring, abiding, 
and eternal. 

All writing and preaching, like all the deeds of 
human life, both good and bad, are effects of the life 
of the ever-growing, ever-progressing, beautiful, im- 
mortal soul ; all of which, I boldly affirm, do not and 
cannot have any influence to injure or benefit this in- 
destructible reality — the soul of man. The soul pos- 
sesses the elements of eternal life ; so, we say, it pos- 
sesses the elements of eternal progression ; then it 
must possess the latent germ that shall forever con- 
tinue to be developed to produce its progression. 
Truth grows out of the soul by the expansion of the 
latent germ that constitute its immortality. A truth 
was never driven into the soul of one man by another 
man, from the external world, that ever became a 
property of its immortality. The first truth and every 
truth that becomes a reality to the soul's eternal exist- 
ence must of necessity be of intuition. 

The writer continues : — 



176 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

"Again, I cannot see how 'the soul's out-reac ring 
after the true, the beautiful, and the good, is an out- 
reaching for the glories of the material world!' " 

What we have called the good, the true, and the 
beautiful, are things of our existence, that so appear to 
our physical senses, to our conscious, tangible existence. 
I cannot but recognize virtue as being the crowning 
glory of the material world, which is an effect of the 
spirit ; a property of earth, not of the spiritual world. 
All recognized religions are of the glories of the ma- 
terial world. Morality, equity, and justice, are of the 
glories of the material, not of the spiritual, world. All 
the deeds of kindness and love, all efforts in goodness, 
are effects of the soul, and are of the glories of the 
material world. These things in part constitute what 
we call the true, the beautiful, the good. These are 
some of the glories and the beauties of the material 
world; some of the effects of the soul made manifest 
through matter. But let the curtain of material love 
be drawn aside, and the vision of the soul behold its 
own realities, and all the glories of the earth disappear 
in the greater beauty of its higher and more real glories. 
The writer again continues : — 

" I cannot see how those whose actions are the worst, 
develop in soul the most rapidly." 

I do not mean to be understood that it is bad actions 
that develop the soul rapidly, but rather that bad ac- 
tions are the effect of rapid soul-development. It is the 
soul's development that moves us to do bad deeds 
— deeds that result in a deformity of our material ex- 
cellence, which deformity breaks our material glory, 
and kills our earthly love. This development pf soul 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 177 

we have no control over. Bad actions de-troy all the 
love of " the true, the beautiful, and the good" of the 
earth, and also produce pain, and render our earthly 
existence less attractive, and the soul is sooner freed of 
earthly ties, for its exit to the spiritual world, where the 
tendrils of its affection will cling with a power equal 
to its growth. 

I do not mean to say that it is not commendable and 
right to love and cherish the true, the beautiful, and the 
good, in our material existence; but J do say we shall 
do this just in proportion as we are impelled to do it, by 
an overruling Power that deals with us in wisdom. 



better from a Correspondent of the "Banner of Light" 

" I have lately seen several articles published in your 
very interesting paper, upon the one idea — ' Whatever 
Is, is Eight' — and desiring to learn the truth, have 
thought much about it, but cannot subscribe to the 
doctrine that ' Whatever Is, is ' always 'right,' and con- 
sider the teachings dangerous, as respects time, although 
they may not be so as regards eternity. 

u Let us analyze the saying, and see how it will 
stand the test. Whatever is, or is transpiring, I take 
for granted is past, no matter how brief the period of its 
taking place. If what is past is always right, there 
could be no penalty attached to any act, however hei- 
nous, nor a reward bestowed for actions which are good. 
Spirit revelations prove that those who have left the 
form, suffer for wrongs done in the body. If whatever 
is, is right, wherefore do they suffer ? 

" Further: wrong committed may leave a sting, both 
to the perpetrator and the injured, and time, or a part 
of eternity (so long as spirit and matter are combined), 
must bear the consequences, or balance the account. 
If this were not so, conscience would be a blank, and 
virtue a chimera. 



178 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

" Wrong is evil done, and mast remain so, until it 
is overcome with good, or is righted — and cannot be 
called right until it is made so. One man may wrong 
his brother in a thousand ways, or he may be a thief, a 
liar, or a murderer ; but can all these deeds be counted 
right because eternity eventually will neutralize them ? 
No one doubts that eternity will do ; but until wrong v 
is righted, whatever is, cannot be always right as re- 
spects time, but may be as regards eternity. 

" So long as spirit is combined or linked with matter, 
it will be clogged and subject to the laws of matter, 
and the combination or juxtaposition, in the various 
faculties of the brain, produce all the varieties of mind, 
and consequent actions for good or evil, as the one or 
the other predominates, is exercised or not, or influenced 
or not, by circumstances, the will, or the judgment. 
Phrenologists, it is true, are, enabled, as they pass 
through the wards of a state prison, to tell, almost to a 
positive certainty, what the criminal deeds of each pris- 
oner may have been ; but they also know that if these 
same criminals should reform, in the course of a few 
years, the brain, or certain organs of the brain, will 
change also, so that the effects will be visible externally, 
not only in the physiognomy of the individual, but the 
various parts of the skull will be elevated and depressed, 
as the organs have been respectively active or dormant. 
This fact cannot be controverted, and puts to flight all 
notions that man cannot be influenced by circum- 
stances or education. 

" All children are not born with the same amount of 
brain, or with faculties which are alike in size, tem- 
perament, or quality ; but this does not prove that these 
faculties cannot be cultivated, or, by exercise and 
proper direction, be increased in bulk, power, and qual- 
ity, like the muscles of the arm, or any other part of 
the body. No one doubts that man has natural incli- 
nations, but must he follow them? Cannot circum- 
stances control the mind as well as shackles the body ? 
Circumstances may make, even those who are better 



IS RIGHT. 179 

disposed, criminals. God has made all, bat circum- 
stances are permitted, and may even turn a river from 
its legitimate channel. 

" Charity attaches no blame ; but so long as the 
spirit is connected with matter, good (being positive in 
its nature) must work out, or neutralize the evil com- 
mitted. Every cause must have its effect, and the fur- 
ther you recede from good, the greater the consequent 
evil. Call things by what name you please, the further 
you depart from the one principle, the nearer you ap- 
proach the opposite. 

"All existing principles are antagonistic, opposite : 
or, if you please, positive and negative, or, in the 
sexes, masculine and feminine. 

" God the great I Am, — the Soul-Principle,— Cre- 
ator and ever-creating Entity, is love — pure, harmoni- 
ous, and homogeneous love, and is the only individual, 
single, self-positive, or masculine existing principle. 

u All other created things, from light to the most 
ponderable substances in nature or the universe, are 
matter, and compound in their natures, and negative or 
feminine in their relation to the all Soul-Principle, or 
to God, the great I Am. Love, the Soul-Principle, or 
the spirit essence, is antagonistic to, or the opposite of, 
matter, or love to hatred, — good to evil, — right to 
wrong, — truth to falsehood, or wisdom to ignorance, 
etc., etc. In the sexes, — male and female, — in inani- 
mate nature, — light and darkness, heat and cold, posi- 
tive and negative electricity, magnetism and galvanism, 
motion and vis inertia, attraction and repulsion, and all 
the other forces in nature, — are qualities possessed by 
and inherent in matter, and, like all other things, are 
opposites, and must be neutralized before harmony, or- 
der, and perfect goodness can be attained in any case. 
Therefore, whatever is, may be wrong in time, but 
must be right in eternity" 

On reading the above the following is suggested. 
Whatever is, is right, may be a " one idea," but it is 



180 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

an idea that is not developed in the soul until the soul 
is at peace and in harmony with all other ideas. 

Time is a fractional part of eternity; the eternal 
years of our existence have already begun. Truth is 
never dangerous, whether it be developed in the soul 
in time, or after time. Truth, when developed by the 
soul, becomes a property of the soul's eternal exist- 
ence. 

Penalties attached to past actions, and rewards be- 
stowed for good actions, must be right, if all things 
are right, and have been. The all-right doctrine does 
not go against penalties for crime, nor rewards for 
goodness. It goes against nothing that exists ; it is at 
peace with all human actions, and in harmony with all 
life. Herein lies the great feature of beauty in this 
doctrine ; all fault-finding and condemnation, inhar- 
mony, war, and opposition, with a conscious develop- 
ment of this truth, ceases to exist in the soul forever, 
and the millennium of peace triumphs over the inhar- 
mony that has been necessary in the past. 

I do not doubt that millions " who have left the 
physical form suffer for deeds done in the body." 
This fact does not weigh against the all-right doctrine. 
The change we call death, does not change the devel- 
opment of the soul. The soul may wear for a time 
its garments of earthly love after, the same as before, 
death. All deeds are necessary products of the soul's 
development, and many deeds inevitably produce suf- 
fering. When the soul grows, it always produces 
some deeds of which suffering is the consequence ; 
and it is this suffering that breaks the soul's affection 
for earth and lets it go up to light and freedom, where 
its nature draws it. Suffering maybe as recessary 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 181 

after as before death. The spirit may have earthly- 
love after, as well as before, death, and in its progress, 
this love will sometime be cat asunder ; and suffering 
is the means, in the hand of Infinite Wisdom, that does 
this work. It is right, it is beautiful, for it frees the 
soul from darkness and conflict, to soar away to the 
condition of its deepest longings — peace, harmony, 
light. 

11 Conscience " to the soul is a " blank," and virtue to 
the soul is a ' ; chimera." To the excellence of the ma- 
terial world conscience is a beautiful reality, and virtue 
is not a chimera. Conscience and virtue are attributes 
of the material world, and in the highest sense are 
beautiful in the logic of matter. In the beauty of the 
soul's superior attributes, when developed, conscience 
and virtue fade away, and, like other things of earth, 
cease to be. 

What we call wrong is a necessary shadow of earthly 
love ; when the love of spirit comes, this shadow is 
gone; the shadow needs no righting, for wrong does 
not then exist. 

Spirit is never governed by human laws, or by the 
laws of matter. Matter is produced by spirit ; the laws 
that govern the material world are produced by spirit ; 
and, being the product of spirit, under the government 
of spirit, do not in any possible way affect the spirit at 
all. In our early and feeble soul-growth, and in our 
yet necessarily darkened condition, we conclude, and 
positively affirm, that our earthly efforts reach the soul 
and influence it in its development ; that by physical 
training, moral culture, and intellectual efforts, the im- 
mortal soul is turned, is changed, in the course of its 
eternal destiny. This conclusion and affirmation is 
16 



182 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

not a fact to the sight of intuition, but it may be a fact 
to the dark philosophy of matter. Man may be influ- 
enced by circumstances and education in his material 
being, but his soul cannot. 

" Man has natural inclinations, but must he follow 
them ? " He will always in spirit follow and obey 
them, and, so far as he can, he will in the material, 
outer world. 

The circumstances of earthly things may turn a 
river from its legitimate channel, it is true ; but they 
will never turn the rivers of God's eternal spirit that 
flow into the channels of immortal souls. 

There exists in matter principles, antagonisms, and 
opposition — not in spirit. Principles, rules, antago- 
nisms, and oppositions, are but playthings of the spirit's 
infancy ; not useful in spirit-manhood. Hatred, false- 
hood, ignorance, darkness, are only curtains let down 
to keep the too dazzling light of heaven off the infant 
soul at first. 



The following letter is from the able pen of Miss 
Emma Hardinge, written by request, expressly for a 
place in the pages of this book; and it may not be out of 
place to say here, that I know no earthly angel whose 
unmitigated efforts are more unselfishly devoted to 
relieve the sufferings of the down-trodden, the offcast, 
and the bleeding children of earth, than are those of 
Miss Emma Hardinge : — 

Emma Hardinge* s Letter. 

" I read it in the dim twilight — in the gray hour 
when God's works and man's works look fitfully 
through the vale of gathering shadows in strange and 



IS RIGHT. 183 

unreal shapes. Forms most beautiful in the clear sun- 
light loom up mysteriously through the dimness, like 
grotesque phantoms and hideous distortions. The 
light, the truth, are wanting, and the straining vision 
translates beauty, through its own ignorance, into ugli- 
ness, God's goodness into wrath, and things of love- 
liest perfection into terror and imperfection. Is not 
this life ? I asked. This landscape, so glorious to- 
day, in the broad revelation of meridian light, remains 
unchanged; but the medium of my vision, now obscure, 
transmutes the beauty into strange, mysterious pictures 
of black phantoms, that, now outstretched before me, 
show like God's great universe beheld through the 
mists of ignorance, and the twilight hue of prejudice. 
Yon lovely willow, upon whose tender green I gazed 
to-day with such heartful admiration, whose sheltering 
tresses protected me like a mother's flowing locks, 
looks now, in the thickening gloom, while its arms are 
tossed hither and thither by the wild, sad evening 
breeze, like a wailing widow, casting her dishevelled 
hair abroad in frantic grief, while her stately neighbor, 
the noble pine, seems pointing with spectral fingers to 
the very skies, in whose clear sunlight it showed to- 
day, a thing of proudest glory and rejoicing. Igno- 
rance is sorrow, fear, and doubt — not bliss. Wisdom 
alone is God-revealed, and in that revelation lies full 
trust and satisfaction, confidence and joy. ' Look 
through the gloom,' my guardian spirit whispered ; 
4 and though the light is mercifully tempered to suit 
thine own dim vision, 'tis full enough to read " a frag- 
ment from a page of gold." 

" i I saw a band of men, all travel-stained and weary. 
They had walked so long and far their feet were 
bruised and bare, their garments worn and ragged; 
their sinking limbs almost refused to bear them, yet on 
they struggled still. I saw in their haggard faces the 
lines of desperate purpose — pale, pinching penury, yet 
savage greed of gold. Hungry they were for bread, yet 
hungrier s/ill for gain. March on, march on! through 



184 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

flood and fell, through moss and brier, through wind 
and storm, in hardship, peril, heat, and cold! What 
earthly pain can stay them ? for are they not the seekers 
for an empire, the pilgrims of a sun — the only sun 
they wish to shine upon them — the sun of wealth? 
Gold-diggers, on ! The goal is reached. I see them 
toil as never human toiled, and know, unless a magnet 
mighty as this gold attracted them, the mortal frame 
would never rend itself in labor so appalling. They 
have found it now — and what a thing they've found! 
— a rude, misshapen lump, half soil, half stone, with 
here and there a speck of dull, pale metal. Is this 
indeed the* end ? These wasted lives, these bleeding 
feet, these months of toil and effort ! Some of the 
band are dead — perished upon the very heaps they 
have dug for; the ugly mounds, of mixed, coarse stuff 
they have lost their lives to find, their cold death pil- 
low; — the black hard earth from which they have torn 
their treasure, their winding-sheet. 

" ' No matter ; follow the gold ; this is our final aim. 
Again, with uncounted leagues of rugged country, with 
months of painful toil, and jealous watching, some 
worn-out pilgrims reach the distant scene, where 
another chapter opens for the gold's progression. I 
see the mighty hammers crushing out its atoms; vast 
machines are there, invented long ago ; the iron which 
for ages lay hidden within the mountain — the iron which 
for ages man has worked upon, heated and cooled, 
beat and drowned and burned, until, in many untold 
generations, he learned to fashion it so that now, at- 
tached to sides of oak and elm (grown in the ancient 
hours of youngest time, and hardened in the womb of 
ages, also), this iron, with its aides-de-camp of fire 
and air and water, its wheels and cranks and levers, 
cylinders and bands, can crush and tear the shapeless 
lumps, for which the miners died, into dust and pow- 
der. I see it lie in heaps ; 'tis still unlovely, a sordid 
yellow dust — no use nor beauty. Oh, to give life for 
this ! 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 185 



" ' I see great fires — the product of vast mines — 
of ancient forests hardened into coal; the work of 
flooding torrents, the crystalizing labor of old time; 
and lastly, the hard-won blocks torn up by thousand 
miners. Millions of years God labored to make these 
blocks; millions of men have perished to procure them ; 
and now they blaze in the vast chimerian caverns, 
spending their burning rage upon the caldrons where 
the dull gold lies melting and fusing. Days and 
weeks and months great buildings are raised to shelter 
it, engines to work it, fires to burn, water to cool, and 
thousands of hands to tend it. The mighty brains 
that fashioned these devices! The neat, ingenious fit- 
tings of each part! How every screw and joint and 
lever was all invented in some busy brain, that spun, 
and cracked at last, thus to adjust them ; — and all for 
what ? Why, just to convert the rock's rough heaps 
from lumps to atoms, atoms into dust, dust into liquid, 
liquid into bars ; bars of one shape into bars of another ; 
and ill all shapes or any, what less lovely than 
these dull, senseless, yellow lumps of earth ? And still 
they burn and cool and batter on ; and days and 
months and twelvemonths — on they go, from spot to 
spot, from continent to island, and still in every shape 
and every form, a brighter lustre looms up from out the 
hammer's blow, and burning caldron's glow. 

Ui I look at last with pleasure upon that shining face, 
where something of the sunlight seems to peep out re- 
flected ; and now the last blow is struck and cut within 
the arms of mighty-tempered steel machines, a per- 
fect circle shines, and now one more hard grip ; the 
crushing weight descends ; a regal picture leaves its 
impress there, and lo ! the golden guinea stands 
complete, the empress of the world ! the sovereign's 
strength! the legislator's aim! the stateman's goal! 
the merchant's fondest hope ! the beauty's conqueror ! 
the artist's prize ! the king of earthly kings ! lord of the 
human race ! 

" ' I could no further trace that guinea's destiny, un- 
16* 



186 WHATEVER IS, IS RTGHT. 

less I might with far out-reaching eye compass the 
breadth of earth. One only chapter could I read ; 
it was within the circle of the gold whereon was 
stamped the image of a man. I saw him prophesied 
when first the ancient monsters lorded it on earth. 
Destructive and acquisitive they were, like the gold- 
diggers ; their own fierce natures preying on each 
other, filled up the rocks with bones, swept off the 
excess, and converted the rude granite by their depos- 
its into organic matter and new rocks, thus preparing 
other forms of matter, each one progressing through 
the heaps of slain. What less than the greed of pay 
could have kept down the excess of these huge beasts, 
and what but savage natures have torn and rent and 
dug and ploughed the world, when man was not to 
work thus ? And so the love of gain and greedy self 
leads on gold-diggers to sustain a toil which better na- 
tures shrink from. Their very evils are the ploughs 
and harrows by which the gold is won. And then I 
saw, when monstrous forms were dead, and nature, in 
organic rocks and soils and vegetation, at last prepared 
for man, how rude and shapeless was he! So like the 
gold in mire and quartz embedded, and yet Hivas still 
the gold. 

u ' I saw him when at first the laving river washed off 
the soil. How the yellow metal, though all unwrought, 
shone out like rude affection in savages and criminals, 
and beings who, though unwrought, and bound about 
with quartz, with hard and rocky sins and stony vices, 
yet had the gold within! I saw God caring for them, 
making the proud and wealthy wait upon their labor, 
send them far and wide, like gold, in ships ; and in this 
very scattering, I saw how order grew out of disor- 
der; how heavy hammers bruised them — the cold 
world's blows (the prison and the fetter) ; I saw them 
show like atoms cut and mashed, borne down by sor- 
row, beaten, broken-hearted, but yet the gold was there. 
I saw them often, in the dens of vice, lie like the heaps 
of dust — no use, nor beauty. I saw them in the 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 187 

fire — the fire of struggle, poverty, and hunger. 1 
saw them burn and cool, and burn and cool ; and 
higher yet I traced the various classes; and all were 
gold, still gold. I looked with growing interest upon 
the noble bars. Ay, these are men, indeed, — these bar3 
of gold, — and yet they are not saints — more fit to strike 
with man, to toy, or worship — more hammering with 
trade and commerce. They must be beaten finer with 
bankruptcy's hard hammer ; with sorrow's blows be- 
come more soft and fine ; the depths within must be 
ploughed up with grief. Strike hard, O world ! the 
gold is not yet current. The circle of the virtues is 
not found, until, at last, the keen steel knife of death 
cuts off the corners of the square world-man, and leaves 
the circle perfect — a saintly shape, fit for the mint 
of God ! Now stamp it with his image — the regal at- 
tribute of love divine, that rules the race ; and lo ! the 
God-like man, outwrought from soil and mud and 
quartz and crime ! the golden guinea man ! the cur- 
rent coin most valued! the thrice-refined gold spirit! 
The twilight's gray grows blackness, but through the 
gloom the page of gold shines out, all love and wis- 
dom. I saw the gold of God within the human soul, 
in every phase of workmanship. I saw it in the min- 
ers, whose very vices were levers to move the whole, 
and set the work in motion. I saw it in the earth, the 
quartz, the atoms, dust, and burning fluid, the lump, 
the bar, — the once, twice, thrice, and hundredth time re- 
fined, — still the same gold as in the precious guinea. 
" ' In tracing up its life, T saw how brains grew big, 
and minds shone out in efforts to perfect it ; how arms 
grew strong, and muscles hard and mighty, by exercise 
and labor; the uses of all things — all instruments, all 
metals, and all woods, machinery, and elemental force 
— to bring it to perfection. So jails and scaffolds, 
prison bars and laws, governments and systems, crimes 
and virtues, sufferings and joys — all, all became ma- 
chinery, and hammers, fires, crucibles, and axes, knives 
and descending v eights, to coin, at last, the image of a 



188 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

God, and stamp it on the saintly soul of man. Shall 
I despise the means, or loathe the gold before it is the 
guinea ? Shall I ask God to create the gold all perfect, 
stamped, and finished ? Ay, that's the word — finished. 
Were all men guineas born, then life is finished, and 
that which completes the circle must also end the work. 
If life is motion, then imperfection is the way, effort 
the means, suffering the goal, and even vice the motor. 
Perfection is annihilation, unless it becomes a point 
where effort ceases only to take breath, and start anew, 
through higher toils and efforts to attain a higher point, 
more perfect than the last, but relatively dross, com- 
pared with the higher currencies in the ever-growing 
mints of life eternal. The darkness thickens, but only 
to display the gorgeous array of silver stars. Night 
is adversity, on whose black pall the stars of wisdom, 
patience, kindness, strength, shine out in grandeur, 
which the day conceals.' 

" So spake the guardian spirit, as he closed the page 
of gold ; whilst I, beholding through the darkness how 
light shone, how value grew from effort, gold from soil, 
responded meekly, ' Let this fragment tell God's love 
and justice doeth all things well.'" 



Dr. P. B. Randolph's Letter. 

High authority on questions of this nature, speak- 
ing on the subject now before us says: — 

" Unquestionably, all the faculties pertaining to man 
as we find him on the earth, are the result of his loca- 
tion — here; their function or office is to subserve his 
own unfolding, and 1he divine purpose — here; and 
when by death he is transported elsewhere, other facul- 
ties, adapted to his new position, will be duly brought 
into action. Their germs are in him here ; they spring 
up at death, blossom in the spiritual land, and will bear 
fruit in that place, and at that period of the eternal 
year, when God shall see proper to so ordain it. We 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 189 

none of us fairly know what we are ; and none, not 
even tht highest seraphs, can tell positively what we 
shall be; yet that man is reserved, and will, through 
all his trials, be preserved for some great, some un- 
dreamed-of destiny or end, there cannot be the shadow 
of a doubt. I hold that all our knowledge here ac- 
quired serves its purpose here ; the grander, the sweep- 
ing, the deathless longings of the soul, are to be grati- 
fied somewhere else. What we acquire here is nec- 
essarily material, and hence can in nowise affect the 
nature or volume of the soul itself. Man is really a 
unitary being, but seemingly is duplex or multiple; 
but this is seeming only. 

" There is but one real sense to man, or in man. That 
sense is intuition — the human sprout of an infinite 
and God-like faculty, dormant in most of us, but par- 
tially expressed in, or manifested by others, yet incon- 
testibly destined to an immense unfolding in all. 
Whatever is, is therefore right, so far as the real man 
is concerned ; yet I do not think this holds good of 
his personal accidents — using this term in reference to 
our phenomenal existence here on earth, viewed with 
man's limited powers of discernment; yet that even 
these ' accidents,' seen from the standpoint of the In- 
finite, are absolutely right, it were folly for me to dis- 
pute. Reason — the faculty given us here merely as 
the pilot through life — has fulfilled its office when we 
step into the grave. When we step out of it, the sense, 
par excellence, comes into play. This sense is the all- 
knowing, ever-spreading intuition. This universaliz- 
ing faculty unquestionably is not the product of earthly 
growth. It is a faculty of prevision and reminiscence. 
Beyond all doubt the skin of a man is not the man, al- 
though whoever sees one, recognizes something human. 
Beneath this skin is the muscular system, with its mag- 
nificent network, all in the form, yet by no means the 
man himself. Beneath this is the osseous system — 
the skeleton ; yet when we see a skeleton, we realize a 
something pointing toward the human, yet do not for 



190 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

an instant confound the bones with the individual, be* 
cause we know that he is, and to earthly vision ever 
was and will be, invisible. 

" We must look below the skin, muscles, nerves, and 
skeleton to find the man. Next we find the senses — 
five, six, or a dozen ; yet, although this gets us still nearer 
the man, we are quite a distance oft' still. Then come 
the faculties and tastes ; — almost there ! — then the 
lower and higher passions; — not home yet! — then 
God-like reason and the qualities of virtue, aspiration, 
and expression; each one step nearer the man! But 
there is a deep thing just beyond all these, and that 
thing is intuition — God's omniscience condensed into 
four square inches of surface. This is the sense, par 
excellence, of the soul, yet it does not burst into full 
activity at once, but requires conditions for its expan- 
sion, just as the faculties require time and exercise. 
My idea is, that the soul is really a divine monad — a 
particle, if you please, of the eternal brain. It once 
was there as an individual integer ; becomes incarnated 
here as an individual, per se ; and intuition therefore 
is an awakening to a personal consciousness of that 
which the inmost soul knew by reason of its deific 
genesis The suffering, etc., of man I regard as means 
adapted to this individualizing; and undoubtedly the 
faculties and passions are agents to this end also. 
Evil is the principal agent. We are beset by it on 
all sides, that we, in shunning it and conserving self, 
may effect the earliest possible completion and round- 
ing out of the inner man. 

" Of course, then, I cannot evade the conclusion, 
looking at the subject as I do from the standpoint of 
intuition itself, that God knew his business well when 
he began the world ; and therefore, when we take this 
lofty stand to pass judgment on Dr. Child's philosophy, 
we cannot help affirming that he is, beyond all cavil, 
correct when he affirms that ' Whatever Is, is right.' " 

The above letter is virtually and really a recognition 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 191 

of the doctrine of this book ; yet my brother Randolph, 
in his recently published work called " The Unveiling; 
or what I think of Spiritualism," reasons somewhat 
with material philosophy, and fires some warlike 
guns of condemnation at whatever is, is right. If he 
loves to do this, there is a good cause, and it is right 
that he should. But his beautiful development of in- 
tuition sends forth its gleams at times. Then reason 
and philosophy dwindle to nothingness, and his per- 
ception and condemnation of evil fall back and are lost 
in the light of spiritual truths. 



Letter from Mrs. J. S. Adams. 

" The philosophy of ' whatever is, is right,' developed, 
is the only true method of harmonizing the conditional 
evils of life. 

" Spiritual truths are not perceived by the material 
senses. The mental faculties of mankind, in their pres- 
ent stage of existence, cannot recognize delicately 
evolved spiritualities ; they are too subtile for them to 
comprehend, and spiritual things are only spiritually 
discerned. 

" This philosophy, therefore, does not admit of argu- 
ment, it cannot be measured by the formulas of earth, 
or righteously judged of by the usual method of reason- 
ing; it must come, and can come only intuitively, 
naturally, to every soul. 

" The lives of true men and women are not injuri- 
ously affected by its adoption. It does not detract one 
particle from the strength and growth of a full and vigor- 
ous manhood ; its aim being to establish harmony in 
the place of discord. 

" A character without what are termed ' faults,' 
would be most negative and repulsive, and life without 
evil, so called, would be any thing but desirable — a 
passive condition wherein virtue would have no reward, 



192 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

truth no merit, and progress no obstacles to aid the 
spirit's growth. 

" Most cordially have I adopted the philosophy of 
Right, and endorsed the spiritual significance of the 
theory you propose to present to the people in your 
forthcoming volume. 

" I sincerely hope that you may be encouraged and 
sustained in your noble efforts by the inhabitants of 
earth, as you have been and now are by the angels of 
heaven." 



The following well-written letter, over the signature 
of Lex Naturce, is selected from the columns of the Ban- 
ner of Light, and will throw light on the subject of 
this book : — 

" The frequent conflicts of opinion that appear in the 
Banner in relation to the very natural views entertained 
by Dr. Child, are, no doubt, to him, and perhaps to others 
who appreciate the full merits of the views expressed 
by him, a source of amusement, at least in one sense. 
It is as if some one had propounded an enigma, the 
solution of which, when once explained, is so inevita- 
bly apparent, that the wonder is that it required any 
explanation at all. 

u But all men are not endowed with an intuitive ap- 
preciation of truth capable of making itself manifest 
through a thick veil of prejudices, the result of educa- 
tion, or perhaps a ' constitutional predisposition ' to 
error — a sort of hereditary taint. The writer of this 
article has at various times been ' exercised' mentally 
on the same points which glitter so clearly in Dr. 
Child's opinions. I recollect some of the mental phe- 
nomena of my childhood, when my intuitions were 
more clear than they now are, and had not been di- 
verted into unnatural channels ; and prominent among 
the illustrations memory affords me of the key to some 
of the causes which influence the actions of men, is 
one of the following character: — 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 193 

" The subject of predestination had occupied my 
mind for several days, though I was not old enough to 
understand the subject by such a name, or any other 
name. I reasoned with myself, l Is it possible that 
every thing which occurs is determined beforehand by 
the power that created ? It is said God knows every 
thing, made every thing, and governs every thing.' 

" And to put my doubts at rest by a test of an ex- 
perimental character, I set myself to do something I 
never before thought of doing; and when I had com- 
menced, I stopped suddenly and said to myself, ' I 
will not do it ? — and set myself reasoning again on 
the matter. And at this point, the first thought that 
occurred to me was, i Was it not determined before- 
hand that I should do as I have, and not do as I have 
not done ? ' 

"Various exercises, differing in many respects, led 
me eventually, in very early life, to the conclusion that 
all phenomena are the result of something going be- 
fore, of which they were the natural sequence ; or, it 
may be said, all effects are the results of causes, and 
are inevitable. At a later period, this subject has a 
more lucid appearance than it had in childhood, for 
the reason that although my thoughts are less charac- 
terized by intuitive phenomena, reason (or the more 
ordinary methods of thought) is aided by a wider 
area of facts. And among these facts, the myriad 
phenomena of Spiritualism are full of evidences ; for 
in all these things may be seen curious evidences of 
causes which may be clearly inferred in effects of a 
character full of novelty to the human mind. 

" The phenomena of Spiritualism are full of evi- 
dence of the causes which influence that most perplex- 
ing of all subjects of investigation — the human mind. 
By the aid of our recent acquaintance with Spiritual- 
ism, we learn that the human mind is often prompted 
by unseen agencies in the invisible world, which, be- 
cause consciousness does not recognize them as such, 
we too often suppose are merely the workings of oui 
17 



194 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

own minds, entirely independent of all control ; and 
because we do not understand these agencies as causes, 
we deny the legitimate inference which a true knowl- 
edge of the facts would elifcit ; to wit, that all effects 
are preceded by causes, and are inevitable, or, in 
other words, predetermined or fore-ordained, etc., etc. 
This one principle lies at the bottom of Dr. Child's 
philosophy, that all causes inevitably produce their 
legitimate effects; and could we stand behind the 
veil that conceals causes from our perceptions and un- 
derstanding, we could as inevitably predict the results 
as they would occur. 

" There is one principle which many minds that are 
far advanced in the knowledge of truth, do not recog- 
nize ; or, if they do recognize it, they do not bring it to 
their aid in considering the incidents which control 
them in the formation of their opinions, and this prin- 
ciple needs to be frequently set before the vision of the 
inquirer after truth. It is this: Nature conspires by 
means to produce results. In other words, nature, by 
a general combination of causes, produces a general 
combination of effects. By strictly excluding particu- 
lars and details, as such, from consideration, but re- 
garding them in the aggregate, by aggregating causes 
and by aggregating effects, we see the force of Dr. 
Child's reasoning. 

" But let us isolate examples, and we may not al- 
ways see the true relation of a single incident to the 
aggregate, which alone is the true test. To make this 
more plain, we will bring the matter up in a compre- 
hensive form, so as to admit of demonstration. For 
example, the meteorologist, in determining the tem- 
perature of any particular locality, takes the average 
of the aggregate of a long series of records of tempera- 
ture for months and years. Were he, however, to rea- 
son as men are apt to, from a single observation, or 
even half a dozen, he would have a hundred chances 
against arriving at the correct temperature, for one 
chance for obtaining it. And as it is in this and in- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 195 

numerable other departments of scientific investiga- 
tion, aggregates and averages are the test of a law of 
nature ; and the same principle exists also as a test of 
other laws of nature, whether relative to crude rudi- 
mental matter, or to matter in its more refined and 
spiritualized condition associated with the highest func- 
tion of matter — the development of intelligence." 



Charlotte H. Bowen, of Wankegan, 111., writes to 
the Banner of Light as follows : — 

" I have earnestly advocated the principle that ' What- 
ever is, is right,' for many years. I did not learn it 
from Pope, nor did I understand it when reading him. 
But when I began to unfold interiorly, this, with 
many other beautiful ideas, was born within me. 
Thus I call it an interior consciousness — not knowledge 
of the intellect ; for it seems entirely new to me, as 
though I had never read or heard of it. The influ- 
ence of these convictions has made me cease condemn- 
ing any person or action, however vicious. I have been 
scorned and scoffed at, reviled and persecuted, and 
called all manner of evil names, for believing as I do ; 
so it need not be wondered at that I rejoice in reading 
Dr. Child's senliments. To see one so gifted and capa- 
ble come out and advocate these beautiful though un- 
popular truths so fearlessly, melts my heart with emo- 
tions of joy and gratitude, not only to him, but to the 
' powers that be.* 

"There are a 4 few wise men,' who have seen the 
star just risen in the East, and will assemble to worship 
it, or rather the principle, the < young Child ' over which 
it stands. So say on, my brother ; truth will make 
you strong, bold, and free. Nothing should make us 
shrink from the advocacy of truth, when we become 
fully conscious of its omnipotence." 



196 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

Lysander Spooner says : — 

" Our ideas of good and evil seem to have had their 
origin in pleasure and pain. Those actions that make 
us happy we call good, and those that make us un- 
happy we call evil. We say of things, also, those 
that give us pleasure are good, those that give us pain 
are evil. We speak of the weather, and call it good 
weather or bad w^eather ; of an enterprise, we say it is 
good or bad, according as its results give us pleasure 
or pain. From childhood we have learned the causes 
of pleasure and pain, and have thus distinguished be- 
tween good and evil. In maturer life we have often 
found that what produces pain, at first, produces pleas- 
ure in the end, and vice versa. A virtuous man is one 
who does not participate in present pleasures when they 
lead to pain. A vicious man is one who surrenders to 
temptation for the moment, without regard to the pain 
that comes in the end. 

" Virtue and vice we know only by contrast. Beauty 
and deformity, light and darkness, heat and cold, we 
know only by contrast. We know nothing, except by 
contrast. It is necessary that these contrasts should 
be perpetually occurring in the natural order of things. 
It seems to me that it is necessary for us to grow in 
the knowledge of good and evil. 

" As a whole, nothing should be set down as evil, 
because there is nothing that does not produce greater 
good than evil, in the end. I think that God caused 
every thing that we call good and evil. 

" As to the effect of this belief on man in his actions, 
I think it is harmonizing; it takes away blame; it 
makes all feelings of revenge cease ; it makes men see 
that it is no fault of a wolf that he is a wolf — no 
virtue of the lamb that he is a lamb." 



Miss Fannie M writes to the Banner of Light 

as follows : — 

" I await with impatient delight your weekly visits, for 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 197 

you have truly become an indispensable visitor, £tnd I 
gather much spiritual food from your beautiful truths, 
among the brightest and most beautiful of which are 
those contained in the views of Dr. Child. And could 
they be read with an unprejudiced and liberal mind, I 
think your readers would perceive in them as much truth 
and beauty as I do. 

" Ask your kind readers to mark his language, his 
conversation, and see if there be any attempt to assert 
a belief for others, or even to judge others. No ; far 
from it. I think if people would exercise more mag- 
nanimity of soul, more liberality, if they would con- 
sider and weigh well his beautiful theory, they would 
not condemn, but admire its beauty. I admire his lib- 
erality, his progressive soul, his divine love for all, and 
I trust there will be a time when the whole world will 
look upon humanity with the same loving and pro- 
gressive spirit." 



Miss Lizzie Doten, entranced, says: — 

" Evil is evil only by comparison ; a lower condi- 
tion than ours is evil to us, and our condition is evil to 
a higher condition. It is necessary for the tree that it 
should begin its growth at the root. The roots grow 
in the ground in the darkness of the earth ; the trunk 
and branches grow up toward heaven. The roots may 
be compared to evil, the trunk and top to good; the 
ramifications of each are similar; both are good, both 
are necessary. So it is of the soul's growth; every 
degree is necessary. The nearer we come to God, the 
purer grows the soul. Why does Dr. Child present 
such views ? It is because the philanthropy of his large 
heart wants to take all humanity to heaven — the 
wicked and the suffering, as well as the good and the 
happy. He would take even the Devil himself to 
heaven; and it may be that the Devil will have a seat 
in heaven ; that God will say — 



198 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

" ' Take, Lucifer, thy place. This day art thou 
Redeemed to archangelic state." 

" The views of Dr. Child are broad and ct mprehen- 
sive ; he goes for generals. His views are right ; his 
position is true. In this general view the wisdom of 
Providence is seen in its perfection ; there is no evil, 
no sin ; but when you come to minutiae, with limited 
perception, you see evil. God produced every thing 
good at first, and God has never changed his mind; 
every thing is good still. 

" You are beginning to accept these broader views 
which are made manifest in the kindness you show to 
sinners, criminals, and prisoners. This is but the begin- 
ning of the good that shall be seen to result from the 
views this brother advances. 

" In machinery there is friction, which makes a loss 
of power. Evil is the friction of life ; it is the conser- 
vative power that prevents men from flying off in a 
tangent to perfection ; it is a necessity ; it is the regu- 
lator of the soul's growth; it times the progress of the 
soul. The higher the soul rises, the clearer it will see 
that every condition it has passed has been neces- 
sary; and that every condition of life has been good in 
itself. Generation upon generation shall look back 
and see that the darkness of the past has been neces- 
sary to the condition that produced that darkness." 



A correspondent, J. C. W., of the Herald of Prog- 
ress, writes as follows : — 

" Brother Davis : Please be kind enough to give 
me your impression respecting the views of Dr. A. B. 
Child on the theory of evil. He declares that every 
thing is good, every thing is right, every thing is beau- 
tiful. Do inform us with your understanding." 

A. J. Davis' answer. 

" Although Dr. Child is clear in his hopes and 
thoroughly spiritual in his estimates of existence, yet 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 199 

is he obscure and unsound in that shadowy, metaphysi- 
cal realm where integral consciousness meets with ac- 
quired and sensuous knowledge. And we hold that, in 
the present sphere of rudimentalism, it is next to im- 
possible to be limpid in all our statements, even when 
the truth itself ripples through the soul with the trans- 
parency of heaven's pure light. Yes, in the highest, 
widest, truest statement, every thing is good, is right, is 
beautiful. But this generous statement is for the far-off 
future, refers to ultimates, anticipates results ; and it is 
not, therefore, practically adapted to the conditions and 
intermediates of the past or present. Because the 
finger of wisdom and goodness is visible in every thing, 
and because there is a world of intelligences environing 
ours, with which our life and destiny are interlinked 
and inseparable, it does not follow that every thing is as 
perfect, as good, as pure, as beautiful as it can become, 
and will be, in the ' far-off future time,' when every 
germ will have ultimated its properties, and the buds 
of earth will have bloomed in heaven. 

" Progression implies imperfections to be overcome, 
as action implies rest, day includes night, right covers 
left, etc. ; but universal present perfection annuls the 
use of any progressive law, and levels all the spirals 
of eternal spheres, which are diversified and constitu- 
tionally different, because unlike or unequal in their 
goodness, purity, wisdom, and life. Ultimate truths 
and final principles, although consoling and exalting to 
every sentiment of human nature, cannot be facts in 
rudimental life — that is, they cannot embody and de- 
scribe what is, but only that which is to come. 

"In the ultimate statement, then, we harmonize 
heartily with our brother, but discord comes with the 
attempt to confound rudimental facts with ultimate 
principles. This result in logic is easily accomplished; 
but in fact, in experience, in sensuous knowledge, no 
such logic is successful. It falls with its own weight or 
evaporates into air. This life is germinal, and, as such, 
it is ' good, right, beautiful ; ' but, as compared with a 



200 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

better life, — a state more right and more beautiful, — ■ 
it falls below those adjectives, and suggests that which 
is crude, cruel, and evil. Hence our voluntary exer- 
tions to make progress toward what is more desirable, 
or at least, io unfold the present up to the standard 
of our ideals. Of broadest and ultimate truth the 
poet hath well said : — 

"'Evil is to God what lightning is to light; 

Lightning slaysVwe thing, light makes all things lire. 
Bear, then, thy necessary ills with grace. 
No positive estate or principle 

Is evil — debtor wholly for its being 
And measure to defect — defect to good. 
What God directly makes must e'er be good, 
And what is good, in whole, or part, he loves, 
And must ; the others are bar off-shoots. /// 
7s limited. What pow'r could form a scheme 
Of universal evil, or eternal 1 ' " 



In answer to the question, " are there no bad spirits ?" 
Mr. A. J. Davis has the following : — 

" We do not recognize all spirits, either in this world 
or the next, as occupying the same relative positions to 
truth and goodness. Some are ignorant, dark, discord- 
ant, and un progressed ; while others are wise, bright, 
harmonious, and beautiful; but intrinsically [in the 
heart and core of life) we can discover ' no high, no low, 
no great, no small.' In the essence of being all are 
alike, but the world-wide discrepancies occur in the 
region of relations; same materials and identical prin- 
ciples, infinitely diversified by difference of combina- 
tion. We have never taught that all spirits are pure 
and reliable ; but that all are progressing centre-ward." 

From the pen of my good brother, A. J. Davis, have 
flowed a thousand streams of pure inspiration, that 
have filled my soul, and a million other souls 3 with 
ecstacy. If a debt of gratitude I owe on earth, it is for 






WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 201 



inspired truths given through the organism of Mr. A. J. 
Davis. 






Miss Lita Barney 5 of Providence, R. I. says: — 

"I suppose that Dr. Child will explain in his forth- 
coming book on good and evil, as the main object, the 
idea of the use of evil, and how to turn it to our high- 
est good." 

I regret that Miss Barney's able pen has not ex- 
plained this, and that her explanation should not be 
herein recorded. 

I think that what is called evil is a lever in the hands 
of Infinite Wisdom, to lift the soul from earth to heaven. 
Conflict and in harmony are warring to destroy earthly 
love, which love, when conquered, frees the soul from 
earthly bondage. 



Mr. Cushing says : — 

" The argument of Dr. Child is logical, and, if true 
in any part, is true in the whole. He is to Spiritual- 
ism what Hume was to the age in which he lived. He 
is the only consistent reasoner I have heard in the 
ranks of Spiritualism. But his basis is absolute fatal- 
ity. His position is, that all matter and all worlds are 
moved by the same Almighty Power; all life, and all 
the manifestations of -life, may be attributed to one great 
cause. And, consequently, he comes across nothing 
wrong. From this position, he must conclude that 
slavery and murder are right, and all crime, and all the 
curses of the earth ; and he has no hand or voice to raise 
against evil. Ask him what is evil, and he says there 
is none. Ask him what God is, and he answers, na- 
ture. He says cause is nature, and effect is nature ; 
all is right. His position claims that there is no use in 
trying to correct men, for there is no power to correct 



202 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

wrong; that man is a part of God, and God is infinite. 
If this position be true, he might as well blot out his 
manuscripts as to read them ; for there is nothing to 
reason upon. He has made assertions without the 
least proof to sustain them." 

The position that I have taken does not claim that 
there is no use in trying to correct men ; neither does 
it claim that there is no power to correct what we call 
wrong. I agree with my brother Cushing, that, so 
far as concerns the soul, my manuscripts and all 
other manuscripts may well be blotted out ; and fur- 
ther, I agree with my brother, that there will be noth- 
ing to reason upon, and no necessity for reason, when 
intuition is well developed ; and further, I agree with 
my brother, that my assertions find little proof in little 
limits. 



Mr. Wetherbee says : — 
" I am on Dr. Child's side. 

" ' All nature trembles to the throne of God/ 

" 'All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; 
That changed through ail, and yet in all the same, 
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame.' 

" There are differences in nature ; all things are not 
alike ; there is light and darkness, cold and heat, good 
and evil, as we say. There is a necessity for all these 
things ; the wisdom and power of God in nature pro- 
duces them. To the vegetable world darkness is just 
as necessary as light. So to the world of intelligence 
evil fs just as necessary as good ; without evil there 
could be no progress. Evil has given to us a greater 
part of our intelligence. In a very limited sense, there 
is evil in the world ; but in a broad and comprehensive 
sense, what is called evil is an absolute good, necessary 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 203 

and essential to human progress. God is perfect. The 
perception of evil is external and material ; and this 
evil is as transient to the soul as is the use of material 
things. The material world is a necessity in the early 
growth of the soul, and so is what we call evil." 






Mr. Chaney say : - 



" "We have been taught that if God were to with- 
draw his support from us one moment we should fall. 
If we admit this as a fact, we must admit the truth of 
Dr. Child's views.' 7 

Mr. Chaney also says, in the Saturday Reporter, of 
which paper he is editor: — . 

" Until recently we have never heard of any person 
who agreed with Pope in the expression ' "Whatever is, 
is right.' Our attention was first seriously directed to 
it by A. B. Child, M.D., and, notwithstanding the prej- 
udices of a lifetime, after listening to the Doctor for 
an hour or two, our reason was convinced, in spite of 
our prejudice, that those four words embody a mine 
of truth. 

" During the recent convulsion among the churches, 
brought about by Spiritualism, Dr. Child has been 
agitating this question, in private conversation, public 
discussion, and through the columns of the Banner of 
Light. At first his ideas were received with scorn and 
derision ; but, gradually, the prejudice of ages has been 
yielding, and while many have been hopefully con- 
verted to this eternal truth, thousands are on the anx- 
ious seat of inquiry." 



The following is an extract from a letter published 
[ in the Spiritual Age, by " M. J. W." : — 

" I must confess that I am in love with the broad 
! and comprehensive theory of our good friend, Dr. 



204 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

Child. A soul that can look out upon the seeming 
discords, irregularities, and sufferings of earth-existence, 
and see perfect order, harmony, and goodness blending 
in one grand whole — one who can walk on all calmly, 
serenely, and securely, amid the apparent contradic- 
tions and clashings of mind in its various degrees of 
development — one who can go forth and place the 
hand of blessing on the head of every child of humanity 
— one who can lift the heart in silent homage to the 
God that { worketh in us both to will and to do of his 
own good pleasure,' while from his own soul streams 
forth the blessings of Divine love, is already ripe for 
martyrdom, and the scaffold of public opinion and con- 
demnation will be raised high by those who cannot 
perceive the beautiful truths which lie enfolded in the 
simple plan of true progression. * * * A 
voice from the deep, deep world of thought within, 
tells me ' Dr. Child is right.' * * * * 

" Dr. Child's theory is not and cannot be ' a savor of 
death unto death,' but a comforting faith, building the 
soul up in its highest, holiest hopes — inspiring it with a 
calm, unshaken trust and confidence in that Father, 
who is a loving friend alike to all, and by divinest 
means outworks man's highest, noblest destiny." 



The following from the pen of L. C. Howe, was 
published in the Spiritual Age : — 

" The problem of evil, which of all subjects is most 
worthy investigation, involves in the mind a mass of 
principles, that will require ages to elucidate to the com- 
prehension of earth's immortals. Few minds have 
been found bold and broad enough, to sweep the uni- 
verse with the clear eye of reason, and proclaim to the 
world that i all is good and beautiful.' And though I 
cannot synonymize the words 'right ' and ' wrong' so as 
to see every thing alike lovely and meritorious, I do see 
much beauty where I once saw none ; and from this I 
infer that I may yet see goodness where no - v I see but 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 205 

evil ; and who shall say that a large growth may not 
open to my soul all the beauties that dazzle the vision 
of Dr. Child ? Be this as it may, we cannot deny that 
there is much to learn, ere we can settle this great 
question, compatible with philosophy, and the moral in- 
tuitions of the soul ; and hence the able discussions of 
honest minds which are calling out so many criticisms 
from various sources, are the very things that we need; 
and 1 can but marvel at the manifest disposition of many 
reformers to stifle free expression with the plea of ' A 
dangerous doctrine. 7 This cry has been raised against 
every new unfoldment from time immemorial. When 
Jesus first lifted his voice against the murderous dog- 
mas of Moses, and proclaimed mercy and forbearance 
against revenge and intolerance, saying to the adul- 
teress, ' Neither do I condemn thee,' he was hunted by 
the church as a 4 dangerous ' innovator, and, at last, 
paid the penalty of his beneficence, by an ignominious 
death. 

" When the all-embracing charities of Universalism 
first sounded the glad tidings of infinite and impartial 
love to the children of men, the creed-contracted world 
stood aghast, and trembled in view of this ' pernicious 
and dangerous doctrine ! ' 

u So, too, when the voice of immortality first broke 
upon the world in the character of ' spiritual rappings,' 
and sent the sparkling of free thought flaming through 
the souls of earth, the slaves of education rallied to the 
rescue, and attempted to muffle the mouth of heaven, 
lest her immortal hosts should open a new vein of 
thought, and lead earth's famishing millions to the 
feast of freedom and truth ! But the time moves on, 
and no power of earth can stay its progressive march. 

" Still that voice is heard, whenever a daring mind 
utters his boldest and broadest thought ; and it may be 
well that it is so, for it calls out the soul's energies to 
scan closer, to probe deeper, and prune the subject of 
all objectionable conditions. 

" But let us examine the subject riore closely. It is 
18 



206 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 



urged that the doctrine which ignores evil, is domg a 
ruinous work, plunging many who adopt it into dark 
and fearful errors ! Now, it is very easy to find a sub- 
terfuge for selfish and debasing gratifications, when the 
mind is constantly on the alert for such an excuse ; and 
such minds may attempt a vindication of their course 
by involving the noble souls who have opened their 
liberal ideas to the world with candor and honesty. 
But where is the philosophy in such self-justification? 
Are we to surrender our individuality, and attempt to 
torture our souls into heaven, because a great mind be- 
lieves that the darkest deeds are fraught with the ele- 
ments of ultimate felicity ? If a man be told that, by 
plunging into a caldron of boiling oil, he will come out 
a shining seraph, will he be likely to try the experi- 
ment, without first attesting the matter, by his own 
judgment ? If you urge me to drink arsenic, that I may 
the sooner taste the bliss of Paradise, think you that I 
should put the cup to my lips ? Never ! But, if a man 
love vice, nothing short of growth in the moral deport- 
ment of his nature can possibly eradicate his proclivity 
thereto. 

" If a man has murder in his heart, is he nearer 
heaven because he dare not execute it? And, if a 
man have not murder in his heart, can sophistry gener- 
ate it there? Whoever has not the self-hood to think 
and to do for himself, must need bitter experience to de- 
velop an individuality. The mind that does think and 
adopt principles for himself, will never be in danger of 
the sad disasters complained of. Nature will be her- 
self, despite our sophistry ; and the only possible way 
to aid in human development, is to give free scope to 
the largest and most radical thoughts, and labor to culti- 
vate high and pure feelings in ourselves, that by our 
daily example and aspiring sympathies, we may carry 
a perpetual moral tone in our souls, strengthen those 
who are struggling with organic weakness and trem- 
bling in the grasp of alluring vices. Our life consists 
not so much in what we do, as in what we feel. It is 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 207 

not the icord that reaches the soul, but heart-life that 
is in the word. If our inner life be true and pure, we 
have little to fear from the errors of the head. The 
soul must first desire to do good, and the effort to sati- 
ate that desire will be forthcoming. 

" Let us labor, then, to stimulate that desire in our- 
selves first, and others will soon catch the flame. The 
feelings of the heart will soon correct the failings of 
the head ; and, if Dr. Child is theoretically in error, 
then it behooves us, instead of carping at his ' perni- 
cious influences,' to correct the ' sophistry ' by practi- 
cally demonstrating the difference between right and 
wrong. To attempt the correction of an error, by pro- 
scribing free discussion thereon, is tacitly admitting 
that that error, with an equal chance, is a match for 
the truth!" 



Letter from Leo Miller. 

" Deep down in the core of human life is imbosomed 
an essence of celestial beauty and perfection — a di- 
vinity as impervious to corruption as its great Prototype, 
whose image it is. The voice of this divinity is con- 
science, which neither wealth, nor fame, nor earthly al- 
lurements, can ever bribe to silence ; and though its 
sweet cadence is often lost amid the Babel din of hu- 
man passion, the soul that inspires it, is what it ever 
was, and is, and ever will be — a thought from the In- 
finite Spirit ! 

" That inner life is subject to no moral taint, for it 
is, verily, l God manifest in the flesh/ " 



Mr. Wilson, says : — 

" The views of Dr. Child come nearest to the stand- 
ard of true Christianity of any I ever heard ; they are 
but a reiteration of the philosophy taught eighteen hun- 
dred years ago. The largeness of a heart that can com- 
prehend and utter such views as Dr. Child has advanced, 
can meet the criminal and say, ' Neither do I condemn 



208 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

thee.' And it can forgive by deeds more lhan by 
words. These views, carried out into practical detail; 
are in harmony with the fundamental teachings of 
Christ. 

" I cannot see the immoral tendency that some believe 
must flow from such views, but I can clearly see the 
reverse of this. When they are received, they must 
give humanity a mastery over immorality ; their influ- 
ence is triumphant over evil ; it reaches from hell to 
heaven. By the possession of these views the soul is 
armed and charged with a positive power over what is 
called evil. 

"I can only judge of others by myself, and of the in- 
fluence that these views would have upon others by 
the influence they have upon me. With these views, I 
know I cannot intentionally injure another man; and 
I cannot believe that any person is in a lower hell than 
lam." 



THE VIEWS OF THIS BOOK ARE IN PER- 
FECT HARMONY WITH THE SAYINGS 
AND PRECEPTS OF CHRIST. 

Christ has said, u Blessed are the poor in spirit ; 
blessed are they that mourn ; blessed are the meek ; 
blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness ; blessed are the merciful ; blessed are the pure 
in heart ; blessed are the peacemakers ; blessed are 
they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake ; 
blessed are ye when men shall revile and persecute 
you. Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your 
reward in heaven." 

There is no condition of human life, then, according 
to these beautiful words of Christ, that comes not 
within the circle of the blessed ; that has not a great 
reward in heaven ; that is not right. 

The poor in spirit are blessed. Who are the poor in 
spirit ? Those who have most deformed, degraded, and 
feeble development of soul are the poor in spirit. The 
souls of the self-righteous and the self-excellent, those 
who think they are more religious and better than 
others, are small and weak in spirit, are poor in 
spirit, but have excellent and strong garments of mate- 
rial love which cover and protect their spirits while they 
are poor and feeble. The poor in spirit are those who 
have not yet a development of soul large enough to dis- 
cern the realities of the spiritual world ; those who can 
18* 



210 

only seethe material world and its philosophies. But 
the poor in spirit are blessed, says Christ. 

Blessed are they that mourn. Who are the mourn- 
ers ? Those who suffer ; those who are afflicted ; 
those who have with regret, with sorrow, with tears, 
lost something that belongs to their earthly exist- 
ence ; those who have committed to the grave the 
ashes of a dear friend are mourners ; those whose 
homes are wrenched from them by the hand of merci- 
less human law are mourners; those who have lost 
their earthly riches are mourners ; those who have 
lost a good reputation among men are mourners ; 
those who have lost their freedom are mourners ; the 
convicts and the rebels are mourners ; the state 
prison is filled with mourners for lost repute and lost 
liberty — and if any house should be dressed all over, 
inside and out, with black crape, it is the prison-house 
of mourning prisoners. The courtesan is a mourner ; 
she mourns for her departed virtue, which virtue 
the sensuous world sets the highest value upon. Re- 
grets, remorse, and agony are frequently the inmates 
of her mourning soul. She mourns for the loss of 
that kind recognition, that hearty approval, her mother 
and her father, her sisters, her brothers, and society 
once bestowed upon her. The murderer is a mourner. 
O God, what agony of remorse fills his bosom ! How 
his regrets mourn over the deed that he has done ! All 
" evil " deeds make sufferers, and all sufferers are 
mourners, and " blessed are they that mourn," says 
Christ. ' 

Blessed are the meek. Who are the meek ? The 
obedient, the patient, the toiling, the mild, the gentle 
and the humble. The toiling slave is meek ; the faith- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 211 



ful laborer is meek; the men and the women that are 
crushed by material excellence, and made to do the 
hard work of life, are meek ; the humble servants that 
make our fires, and black our boots, and prepare our 
food, while we lie at ease, are the meek and the beau- 
tiful. Poor men and poor women, who submissively 
and willingly do all the hard work for the rich men 
and the rich women, are the lowly, the humble, the 
obedient; they are the meek and the lovely, whom 
Christ has said are blessed. 

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness. Who are these ? Every child that lives on earth, 
with not one single exception. Eighteousness is right; 
righteousness is goodness, the possession of which is 
happiness. Every soul seeks happiness with a deep 
and ardent desire. Every step taken by every human 
soul is a step taken to this end. No one voluntarily 
walks into pain and suffering; but every one, at all 
times, in all places, and in all conditions, voluntarily 
takes a step for happiness. Every soul hungers and 
thirsts after righteousness, the fruition of which is the 
desire of all. And " blessed are they that hunger and 
thrist after righteousness," says Christ. 

Blessed are the merciful. Who are the merciful? 
The compassionate, the forgiving, the sympathizing, the 
tender, and the kind. The merciful are made so by 
passing the ordeal of sin, suffering, and affliction. To 
be merciful always is to see no evil. He who with a 
sacrifice binds up the wounds of the wounded, and 
helps to assuage the sufferings of humanity by taking 
the pain upon himself, is compassionate, is merciful. 
He who forgives the offences of others, and loves the 
offender just as well after as before the offence was 



212 WHATEVER IS, IS RTGHT. 

committed, is merciful. He who sympathizes with the 
down-trodden, and with the outcast, by practical deeds 
of goodness, is merciful. The woman who is tender 
and kind to everybody in every condition of society ; 
who is free from pride, scorn, and condemnation, who, 
by words and actions in her every-day life, sends forth, 
in practical deeds, the gushings of a loving, affection- 
ate, and generous heart to all around her, is merciful. 
It is sin and its consequent suffering that makes us 
merciful. " Blessed are the merciful," says Christ. 

Blessed are the pure in heart. "Who are the pure in 
heart ? Those whose love of the earth is broken and 
fallen off; those whose souls have risen above the 
shadows of matter into the clear light of spiritual real- 
ities ; those whose vision by natural development has 
grown to see the hand of God distinct in all things ; 
those who can see God and see no evil. What makes 
us pure in heart ? Travelling through the progressive 
journey of our earthly life ; passing through the fires 
of affliction; involuntarily drinking the cup of bitter- 
ness which wisdom holds to our lips, and which cup is 
made of sin. The pure in heart are those whose love 
of earthly things, by affliction and suffering, is torn and 
stripped off from the soul. The pure in heart are those 
whose vision sees all things pure, sees all things good, 
sees that whatever is, is right. " Blessed are the pure 
in heart," says Christ. 

Blessed are the peacemakers. Who are the peace- 
makers? Those who have done making war; those 
whose deeds now make peace; those who oppose 
nothing ; no belief, no doctrine, no creed, no pursuit or 
effort of others ; those who fight not any thing or any- 
body, but those whose souls are in harmony with all 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 213 

life ; those whose souls have gained a triumph over the 
conflicts of the material world by passing through its 
afflictions, its sin, and its suffering. It is those who 
can understand the harmony of discord, and see that 
whatever is, is right. " Blessed are the peacemakers," 
says Christ. 

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteous- 
ness' sake. Who are persecuted for righteousness' 
sake ? All that have suffering on earth. All suffering 
is a persecution for the sake of happiness ; all pain 
and all affliction is a means in the ordering of nature 
to bring happiness to the soul. All the afflictions of 
life are the persecutions of nature, which humanity 
cannot avoid. But blessed are all they that suffer per- 
secution for the sake of the righteousness, the goodness, 
and the happiness that shall be theirs in consequence. 

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute 
you. Who are reviled and persecuted by men ? All, to 
whom the finger of scorn, ignominy, and condemnation 
is pointed. The man on the gallows ; the man in hand- 
cuffs and in iron chains ; the man in the prison-house ; 
the courtesan ; the inhabitants of North Street, the 
Five Points, and Billingsgate ; the man or the woman 
who steps into a ditch of immorality ; the drunken 
man in the gutter ; the man whom men " turn out of 
the church of Christ ; " the reformer ; the man who 
presents a new thought to humanity ; the man who 
treads on untrodden ground, who dares to take one 
step outside the well-beaten path where millions have 
trod before him. Our beautiful Christ was nailed to the 
cross for this ; was on that cross reviled and persecuted 
by men. And he has said, " Blessed are ye when men 



214 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

shall revile you and persecute you. Rejoice and be ex- 
ceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven." 

The basis of these teachings of Christ is a palpable 
recognition of the transcendent reality of the soul 
which grows up through all the conditions of life, and 
in every condition, without one single exception, is 
blessed. Every condition of life is a pathway pecul- 
iar to itself, in which every traveller is ever moving on 
to one great, grand ultimate — the goal called heaven ; 
to the home of the blessed ; to the places prepared for 
them in our Father's house of many mansions. 

Christ has said, Resist not evil. While the soul is 
conscious of the existence of evil, it is inevitable not to 
resist it. There is a condition of spiritual develop- 
ment, in which there are no shadows of earth to ob- 
struct the vision of the soul, where no evil is seen ; then 
the soul can obey Christ, resist not evil. No one can 
obey this command of Christ without acceptance of 
the beautiful truth, all is right. 

Christ says, " Love your enemies, bless them that 
curse you." How can we love our enemies while we 
esteem them wrong and evil ? We cannot love what 
we esteem evil. We can only love them by esteem- 
ing every manifestation of their hatred and cursing as 
being a necessary result of a lawful condition ; as being 
a manifestation of goodness in the ordering of Divine 
Wisdom. In this view we can love them, and bless 
them. Christ says, " Take no thought for your life, 
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for 
your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more 
than meat, and the body than raiment ? " God feeds 
the fowls of the air, and clothes the grass of the fields, 
and shall he not much more clothe you ? " Seek ye 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 2 15 

first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and 
all these things shall be added unto you.' 7 

In these words of Christ is a foreshadowing of a 
perfect faith in God ; a perfect confidence in the work- 
ing of all the laws of nature, human action and human 
effort being a law of God and an operation in nature. 
These words of Christ recognize the fact of human 
destiny, absolute fatalism, which is nothing short of 
perfect trust in God. 

In the precepts of Christ is embodied universal bless- 
edness, and the doctrine of unmeasured beauty — 
Whatever is, is right. 

Christ was a friend of the whole human family — 
of harlots, courtesans, publicans, and sinners, and all 
the company of hell, for he said — " Come unto me 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest." The spirit of undying love glowed in his 
breast for all who needed compassion, and more for all 
those who suffered most. We think that devils suffer 
more than angels ; and for devils Christ's love was 
deepest and brightest, because such most needed his 
love. 

The inevitable effect of the acceptance of the " all- 
right " doctrine, is to follow Christ's example in the 
exercise of compassion, sympathy, and kindness for the 
suffering, the miserable, and the down-trodden of the 
earth. 

The precepts of Christ, and his manifestation of life, 
stand out, to my preception, more palpably spiritual, 
than the precepts and manifestations of any man I 
know on the pages of profane or sacred history. 

The power of love was so great in Christ, that it has 
moved the hearts of men for two thousand years as no 
power has ever done. 



WHAT EFFECT DOES THE DOCTRINE, 

"WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT," HAVE UPON 

MEN AND SOCIETY? 

What effect does the soul have upon men and soci- 
ety that has a condition developed which can see the 
hand of God in every thing; that can see beauty in all 
life; that can, from its deepest convictions, unreservedly 
declare that whatever is, is right ; that evil is good ; 
that both evil and good are God made manifest ? The 
effect of such a soul, in a material sense, upon every- 
body and every thing that comes within the sphere 
of its influence, and feels its influence, is to produce 
heaven. Such a soul has light in which it can see the 
machination of natural darkness ; it can discern the 
hidden springs of physical laws ; it can read the human 
heart, its intents, designs, and purposes ; it can see the 
God-power beneath, that produces all the manifesta- 
tions of human life. It has grasped what sages and 
philosophers, poets and divines, have reached for with 
life struggles, and have longed to grasp ; it has found 
the key to the mysteries of physical life ; it sees God in 
every thing. Such a soul, too, has a power that tran- 
scends all the powers of matter combined. It is con- 
scious of a power that matter cannot influence, oppose, 
injure, break, or destroy. It realizes a power of its 
own, that rises triumphant above all the antagonisms 
of earth and the philosophies that belong to it. It is 
as free as the air of heaven. It is as peaceful as an in- 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 217 

fant child. Combat such a soul with the war of un- 
kind words, and they have no more effect than the fir- 
ing of cannon balls would have, made of soap bubbles; 
such a soul is not hit or hurt by the religious warriors 
of time. Prison bondage has no effect upon such a 
soul, for the soul cannot be confined. Disease has no 
effect; every pang is but hastening the object of its 
longings. To such a soul death is a trivial affair ; 
death is but an incident that comes between the pulsa- 
tions of the progress of the human soul ; a quicker 
breath, a little damp upon the brow, and the garments 
of the first minute of life (viz., time) are dropped, are 
changed for those of the next minute, which time we 
have supposed was the beginning of our spiritual exist- 
ence. Such a soul has learnt that the material body 
was only a garment of spiritual childhood, and that 
the thorns of life, as we journey on, were made to 
scratch it off, and give place to new garments adapted 
to its advanced condition. The thorns and the thistles 
of life we thought were evil, while in the light of truth 
we see that they are useful instruments — shears, scis- 
sors, and ripping knives, that cut our earthly garments 
away ; the lesser affections of the soul that bind it to 
matter and make it sooner free ; and the deeper and 
stronger affections of the soul for things above are 
sooner developed ; which affections make the new gar- 
ments of spiritual existence far more lovely, far more 
beautiful than the garments of the earth, the physical 
body. 

The whole idea, that the world is all wrong, that all 

things are wrong, that men are what they ought not to 

be, and things are not what they should be, fades out 

of the soul's consciousness, and, like the illusion of 

19 



218 



phantoms, is gone, leaving no real traces of the exist- 
ence of evil behind. And all life comes up clothed in 
new beauty ; for the soul has broader conceptions ; 
worlds of new truths open to its deeper perceptions ; 
stars shine with a new lustre; planets revolve in the 
order of a new creation, and new perceptions of the 
eternal God go out in the light of undimmed reality. 
The horizon of human love grows as broad as the con- 
ceptions of the soul ; and beauty is seen emanating from 
the heart of life through every thing that has existence 
— through deformity no less than through symmetry — 
through evil no less than through good — and the soul 
has come to see God by its natural growth, through the 
avenues of the love of Christ, the Jesus of Nazareth. 

In the light in which no evil is seen, every human 
soul appears immortal ; and the real recognition of the 
property of immortality in a human soul is enough ; 
the beauty is too great; it staggers our feeble powers 
of endurance to behold it; it stifles our utterance, if 
we attempt to describe it; it is too mighty for our 
consciousness to weigh. And it is here we cease to 
weigh the merits and the demerits of another soul ; 
here we cease to judge. The possession of the prop- 
erties of eternal life and eternal progress belongs to 
every soul, with no exceptions, if it belongs to one. 
This simple truth, when realized, is brighter than the 
material sun that shines upon us at noon-day, in the light 
of which no shadows of the night of evil can be seen. 
In the light of these truths, the soul sees and values the 
real thing — not the effect, which is but darkness, and 
passeth away — or the soul comes up thr pugh it. 

In every-day practical life, these views, if reached 
fully, annihilate hell and open heaven. The enmity of 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 219 

the soul ceases ; bitter feelings cease ; seeming faults 
in others disappear ; slander and calumny are no more ; 
a war of words is ended ; getting mad, and being con- 
tentious is done with ; war is ended, murder is ended, 
both legal and illegal; robbery, both legal and illegal, 
is ended ; the curses of prostitution, both legal and 
illegal, are ended ; bondage is ended, and freedom has 
commenced. Human souls fall into the arms of spon- 
taneous love, that comes of natural growth. This de- 
velopment will make men always kind and friendly to 
one another ; it will make men religious, by being 
spontaneous and natural in all their actions, true to the 
dictates of reason and common sense ; it opens the 
book of nature for our Bible, and we read with under- 
standing, and learn by natural development. 

A soul that can see no evil, no wrong, sees some 
good and admirable qualities in every one, even in the 
most repulsive ; and these apparently small, dim de- 
velopments of goodness, when gazed at intently, be- 
come so luminous as to make the darkest soul look 
bright and beautiful ; and it is this light of goodness 
that we may, in every one, always see, when we have 
the capacity to do so, that destroys repulsion, and 
burns away all the shadows and darkness of what 
might otherwise be counted sin or evil. 

A soul that sees no evil, sees goodness and beauty 
everywhere, in every thing. It has no fault to find, no 
opposition to make, no war to sustain, no hell to com- 
bat — all is peace, all is charity, all is love. You ask 
what influence a man has upon society, whose soul is 
developed so as to see that all God's works are right ? 
Why, I cannot but repeat, that heaven is wherever he 
gees. His faith in God is without limits ; his charity 



220 WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 

for others is as broad as the household of humanity, 
and the kingdom of heaven is within his bosom. 

Is such a man as this a bad man in society ? Are 
we afraid of such a man as this ? Henry Ward Beecher 
says that he is afraid of such a man as this, or of a 
man that says that it is not wrong to steal. And many 
others are afraid, when they hear the truth declared in 
unqualified words — " There is no evil? The fear of 
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ; this fear is right 
and in its right place. But we shall all sometime see, 
as we grow in spirit and in truth, that there is no evil — 
then there will be no fear. Perfect love casteth out all 
fear ; a growth of soul that is capable of seeing God's 
hand in sin, does not, cannot fear it. 

A man who sees no evil is a guardian angel to hu- 
man suffering ; he walks with the lowly and talks with 
them ; he is en rapport with the most degraded souls, so 
called — souls most infantile in spiritual growth. In- 
fant children have the guardian care of angels and ser- 
aphs. And so it is with the souls of men — infants in 
spirit — buried deepest in the darkness of the material 
world ; they have the love of God, through his angels 
and seraphs, to hold, nurse, protect, guide, and direct 
them, unseen, in darkness, through all the childish, or as 
we do say, evil, manifestations of early existence. 

A man who sees no evil, does not, cannot wrong 
another ; he is faithful and honest in all the duties of 
life. He needs no government of human law to make 
him do to others as he would that others should do to 
him; he never uses human law to protect self-posses- 
sions. He needs no locks, no guns, no prison walls ; no 
human legislation, no executive, no human tribunals, 
no courts of justice, no human judges. He earns his 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. 221 

bread by the sweat of his brow. He does the work of 
life peacefully, honestly, truly, humbly. All hail that 
day ! when humanity shall see in soul, that all that is, 
:s right, for then peace shall reign over the whole earth. 
19* 



WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT, 

BY. A. B. CHILD, M. E>. 

NEW EDITION. 

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM WHlTHi & CO. 

158 Washington Street, Boston, Mass. 

PRICE— ONE DOLLAR. 



THE PUBLISHERS PRESENT THE FOLLOWING 

NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 



The first edition of this extraordinary book has met a rapid sale. 
In presenting a new edition we offer a few voluntary contributions 
which comment upon its merits, and will give the reader some idea 
of its favorable reception. We have not presented the book gen- 
erally and indiscriminately to the secular and the sectarian presses, 
which it is our intention to do in our present edition. 

Provincetown Banner. 
Whatever is, is Right. This book is written by Dr. A. B. 
Child, and is published from the Banner of Light office in Boston. It 
is fresh and vigorous and well worth reading. The author gives a 
fair idea of its import in the preface : " It has approbation for every 
thing, and condemnation for nothing. It recognizes no merit, or de- 
merit, in human souls ; no special heaven for pretended self-right- 
eousness, and no special hell for a bleeding, suffering humanity. It 
accepts every creed, belief, and doctrine, every action, good and 
1 bad/ as being the lawful effect of a cause that lies in unseen spirit, 



2 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

which cause is above the power of human volition." The whole book 
is a presentation of the doctrine that all existence is precisely as it 
was meant to be by Infinite Wisdom ; and therefore that all is good 
and right. Strange as all this may seem there is an overwhelming 
logic in it. 

TJie Shekinah. 

Whatever is, is Right, by A. B. Child, M.D., has within a 
short period become, extensively known. It is a remarkable book, 
outstripping human conception in the unfoldment of the Divine Law 
to our understanding as no work has ever done before. 

* * * The poem which gave the world the problem, " Whatever 
is, is Right," was a divine conception in the first place, and we welcome 
this amplification of it by Dr. Child as one of the great steps onward 
in the new era of unfolded truth. 

Those who cannot understand it, will of course decry the doctrine 
as productive of evil in removing restraint from the evil-disposed ; 
but no fears may be entertained on that score, for those who could 
draw a lesson of evil from it, are not prepared for it, and therefore 
will not accept, but denounce it. Those whose interior perceptions 
are unfolded so as to enable them to embrace understanding^ its 
precepts, cannot be led into error by any doctrine whatever ; and cer- 
tainly not by the truth. Had Dr. Child brought forward more clearly 
the growth of the soul through aspiration, he would have pointed out 
what, to our mind, is the true doctrine of development. In this, how- 
ever, we entertain different views. We hope to discuss some of its 
positions at length in the future. 

Bristol County News. 

Whatever is, is Right. By Dr. A. B. Child. Boston. 

It must, indeed, be a rarely gifted heart that can embrace all na- 
ture, and say of all things that they are good. Who can imagine what 
thoughts were passing through the mind of the great poet when he 
penned the sentence, — 

" One truth is clear — whatever is, is right." 

In the consciousness of all men this thought is often evolved. The 
poet was a brave man, and of those who have admired, not one i$ 



NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 3 

ten thousand Lave dared to follow him. And yet, Bay what we will, 
the sentence is a paradox; but is not nil nature full of paradoxes? 
The author of the hook before us has brought to bear upon his sub- 
jeet the full powers of a mind such as few men possess — a mind more 
evenly balaneed than usually falls to the lot of men. We feel when 
we read his sentences, that an emotion of love prompted each ; for 
without this pleasing passion, no one eould write as he has written or 
think as he has doubtless long thought. We are not now prepared 
to express our eonvietions upon the subjects of which he treats in 
this book ; but at some future time, after we have read and reread 
it, we shall speak of it further. In the mean time, we strongly advise 
all who desire to see an intricate subject philosophically and fairly 
treated, to purchase the book and make it the subject of serious 
thought. 

Herald of Progress. 

" Talent alone cannot make a writer; there must be a whole mind be- 
hind the book/' 

Whatever is, is Right. By A. B. Child, M.D. Boston. 

The seal of the last book is opened. The vials of wrath are empty. 
The great bottle of destruction is broken. A book of extraordinary 
value is before us. It is unlike all the creeds of Christendom. It is 
as much in advance of Unitarianism as this form of faith is superior 
to old-fashioned New England Calvinism. * * * It is the first 
unmitigated attempt to establish the poetic philosophy of Pope. It 
has, consequently, " approbation for every thing, and condemnation 
for nothing. It recognizes no merit, no demerit, in human souls ; no 
special heaven for pretended self-righteousness, and no special hell 
for a bleeding, suffering humanity. It accepts every creed, belief, 
and doctrine, every action, good and bad, as being the lawful effect 
of a cause that lies in unseen spirit, which cause is above the power 
of human volition." 

We celebrate the auspicious day when the germ of this book was 
deposited by the Author of all things, or by whatever you choose to 
name the source of u every good and perfect gift." We rejoice ex- 
ceedingly, not because we believe in the entire philosophy promul- 
gated, not because we think it will act beneficially upon the throng- 
ng multitudes; but because the doctrine is presented, as it must be, 



4 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

in the necessitarian's " magic circle," from which no thoroughly in- 
volved logician can ever hope to escape. There floweth a sweet 
" river of life " through this garden of flowers. This monotonous 
stream singe th both day and night — 

"All things work round like worlds. The orb of hell 
Hath yet its place in heaven, as thine and all. 

* * * spirit is the substance of all matter, 

* * * in all existence. 
Look at your spirit.' 1 

* * * The author seems everywhere to consider explanation 
the same as justification. Because effects can be traced to causes, 
the qualitative difference between the two is forever annihilated. 
For example : — 

" Wliat is a lie ? " he asks. Answer : " A lie is true to the cause 
that produced it ; so what we call a Ire is a truth that exists in nature, 
just as real as is what we call a truth. The cause of a lie exists in 
nature ; the cause of a truth exists in nature, and the effect of each 
cause is wrought out in nature. Nature is always true in her work ; 
so both a truth and what we call a lie are lawful and right in the 
great plan of existence. A lie is a truth intrinsically ; it holds a law- 
ful place in creation ; it is a necessity." 

Again : " Is murder wrong ? " One would at first say, " yes." 
But, presently you will answer, " no." Why so? Because " What- 
ever is, is Right." You will reject this doctrine unless you believe 
it. But suppose you do reject it and combat it ; will such a course 
be wrong ? No. Why not ? Because " Whatever is, is Right." 
The circle of this philosophy is expansive and contractive both, and 
every moment it is pervaded with an irresistible enchantment. Once 
get in, once view the universe and all things from its delightful stand- 
point, and your verdict will be, " Whatever is, is Right." If you do 
not enter the charmed ring of logic, it will then be natural for you 
to oppose it, and this again will not be wrong, because, " Whatever 
is, is Right." 

" Self-excellent and self-righteous men will say in their hearts, 
* Why, this book brings all men upon one common level ; if no one is 
better, if no one is worse, all have equal claims to happiness.* Where 
is my reward for my excellence and my righteousness above the man 
who is not so excellent and so righteous as I am ? ' To such this 



NOTICES OF TITS BOOK. • 5 

book will give offence, and from such it will receive unmeasured 
scandal. Bui such treatment (of views not contained in their own 
creeds) is perfectly right, for it is lawful in nature." 

Wliat will the sectarian press say about this book ? 

Answer, by the author : " I suppose sectarian editors will hold this 
book with the tongs, turn its leaves over with the poker, and speak 
of it as being as fatal to their religion and morals as the sirocco, the 
upas, and the serpent's venom is to human life. If sectarian newspa- 
pers notice this book at all, it will be presented in the light of only 
one creed, and will be condemned with severity. This icill be right." 

Thus, our good brother's gospel is comforting to the last degree of 
heavenly peace. We cannot say any thing wrong. All persons are 
henceforth just as good as they can be. * * * 

Yet it may be wrong if we should withhold the expression of our 
conviction that some of the lessons of this book are divinely sublime 
and all-embracing. We find herein some of the purest aphorisms, 
and some of the largest hints at eternal principles of truth ; and, 
"live or die, survive or perish," we hereby extend to this loved 
brother our "right" (not wrong) hand of fellowship and greeting. 

Banner of Light. 

A man of large soul and restless brain is the author of this remark- 
able volume before us — the free expression of whose thoughts has 
already awakened wide public attention, and is destined to arouse it 
still more in the future. It is so, because he speaks from his own 
intuitions directly to the souls of all men who will listen ; because he 
is humble, and thus becomes the recipient of great truths which other 
men's pride and ambition will not permit them to receive ; because 
his sympathies for humanity are boundless, embracing the entire 
family of man, in all conditions, spheres, and circumstances ; because 
— which would, indeed, follow of necessity — he is earnest where most 
men would hesitate with their doubts, and boldly and unflinchingly 
asserts what he knows, though he were the only man in the wide 
world who said it ; and, finally, because he heeds only the revelations 
made to his own soul, sturdily refusing to run about in a gadding and 
gossiping way after the half opinions of others. 

We cannot better set forth to the general reader the corner-stone 
doctrine of this living book than by quoting out of the book itself, as 
follows : " The recognition that whatever is, is right, is not new 



6 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

liut the doc trine that the soul cannot be influenced by the powers 
of the material world, by human actions and teachings, by any deed, 
or any earthly manifestation of life, to this age and generation, is a 
new doctrine. This doctrine is intuitively developed in the unspoken 
feelings of thousands to-day. Tacit persuasion expresses it in spirit. 
The consciousness of the truth that the soul can only be influenced 
by that which is like itself, that which is unseen and immortal, is the 
effect of intuition — not the effect of education, for no books and no 
human teachings tell us this. The doctrine of whatever is, is 
right, in this view of the soul's relation to the material world, alone 
can be accepted. The philosophies of the earth can never accept 
this doctrine. That power of the soul which can see spirit causes, 
the power of intuition alone, can or will accept the doctrine of what- 
ever is, is right. This age develops the recognition of intuition, as 
being a thing more real than reason and philosophy." 

Hence evil, which is only the effect of the souVs growth, can make 
no lasting impression on the soul itself; it is cast off, as we throw 
away old boots and clothes when we have done with them. Evil is 
but a phantom of time — a path chosen by the soul in its free quest 
after happiness ; and there can be no fear, therefore, that this grand 
doctrine will lead men to do evil as readily as to do good, because, 
as Dr. Child says, " those who love and commit immorality and crime 
will not yet accept it " — and " those who can fully accept it have the 
power developed to see that every immoral and criminal act is as 
much to be avoided as steps taken on red-hot coals of fire." 

The author has uttered himself spontaneously, as he says, to his 
reader, and only because he must. He has given expression to a 
thousand yearnings, hopes, feelings, and intuitions that fill the souls 
of the multitude, but find few enough organs, God knows, through 
which to make themselves heard. He speaks for the human soul 
everywhere ; and though his language has not the precision deemed 
essential by the philosopher, it will be likely to produce, on this very 
account, ten thousand times the popular effect. His nervous expres- 
sions, his phrases so full of spiritual energy, his hot words of sincerity 
and faith, showing that he indeed knows for himself and no other man 
can know for him, will all tell with direct and wonderful power on 
the popular mind, and set on foot just the work he aims at — to make 
every soul its own true lord and saviour. 

TUs book may be called a bold pioneer in a great cause. It 



NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 7 

breaks the chains that have so long held the masses bound In spiritual 
despotism. Like some powerful subsoil plough, it goes down searchingly 
among the long-concealed roots, the dank and cold soils, and stirs up 
the whole mass so that light and heat and moisture may be let in to 
do their perfect work. It publishes to man everywhere, high as well 
as low, the measureless value of his own silent and spiritual intuitions. 
With the repeated blows of his powerful sledge-hammer, he smashes 
with remorseless energy the idols of selfishness, ambition, pride, and 
partisanship, and seems to glory In the ruinous work he performs as 
an iconoclast. Yet all this is tempered with the largest and warmest 
love ; but it is a love that permits itself to rest on dear humanity, and 
not on any of its cramping, debasing, insufficient, and unworthy sym- 
bols. In this regard, few men live and write with purposes more sin- 
gle and simple than our esteemed author ; few are so truly brave in 
their spiritual utterances; and few therefore address themselves to 
the common heart with such a sturdy eloquence that best betokens 
power. 

It is a good symptom that this our day brings forth a book of this 
character. What men want most to hear is something directly about 
themselves; they feel that they have been cheated with pretences 
and appearances long enough. Here they are told that all ot life 
and reality is within themselves, and that all these externalities— so- 
cial arrangement, church, state, power, money, influence, authority, 
reputation — are mere shows, set up only before the eyes of others, 
but of no value to the individual soul itself, or its development. Such 
a book is a brave book, of necessity ; it will stir the hearts of the 
multitude who read it, like the notes of an awakening clarion. All 
along its advancing pages may be found thoughts born of immortality, 
for whose companionship men go hungering and thirsting from the 
beginning to the end of their lives. When such utterances are made 
to the world, proceeding as they do from a soul plunged in the pro- 
fundity of its deep sympathies for all other souls, and lying open on 
all sides, like the wide landscape, for the reception of spiritual light 
and life — that world will be likely to take heed, to gather new 
strength, and to continue on in a new and clearer path rejoicing. 
Dr. Child proves himself the most radical of reformers, because his 
clear intuitions tell him that the laws of the spirit are superior to all 
the merely mechanical, external, and material laws ever invented for 
the professed advantage of man. 



O NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

Boston Investigator. 

u W hatever is, is Right," is the title of a book lattly written 
by A. B. Child, M.D. It is ->ne of the many works which the singu- 
lar doctrine of Spiritualism has brought forth, and, being very strongly 
marked with the peculiarities of that intense school, has attracted 
considerable attention. The title of the book, as our readers are 
aware, is Pope's famous expression in his Essay on Man ; and Dr, 
Child makes an application of it, in looking at life as it is. 

He appears to us to start in his argument with the idea that there 
is a God; that he is infinite in wisdom and goodness; that all his 
works are perfect, and consequently " Whatever is, is Right." This 
argument is carried out at great length, and in an able and interest- 
ing manner, proving the author to be a thinker of no ordinary depth 
and capacity. He also lets the reader into the mysteries of Spirit- 
ualism, and speaks of " souls," u angels," and " spirits," with much 
confidence, and no doubt with sincerity, for we have no reason to 
suspect otherwise. On these points, his views will be appreciated by 
those who can comprehend them. We are not of the number at 
present. 

But his all-right doctrine is not inconsistent with the theory he lays 
down : for, if there is a perfect God, and human beings are his work- 
manship, they cannot in any sense be defective, because perfection 
can no more produce imperfection than a sweet fountain can send 
forth bitter water. We understand this to be Dr. Child's argument, 
and he carries it out logically, applying it to particulars as well as 
generals, to relative as well as absolute events. Nor do we see how 
this position can be overthrown, admitting the correctness of the 
theory on which it is based. If God created mankind, he formed 
them according to his wishes, and hence they fulfil his designs in cre- 
ating them. The world, therefore, is just as he desires it, or meant 
that it should be — " Whatever is, is Right ; " and it would seem that 
all who believe in a God must take this view, in order to be consist- 
ent, because any other view detracts from the attributes which his 
believers accord to him. 

But is the doctrine true, that every thing is right? In other 
words, is every thing just, equitable, good? No! for we everywhere 
see error, wrong, oppression, fraud, injustice, wretchedness, misery, 
vice, crime, and suffering. Are these right in the sense supposed ? 



NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 9 

They may be inevitable, the result of an all-controlling necessity, but 
we doubt whether they are for the best, Deity or no Deity. Dr. C. 
in part of his argument, seems to conclude, that because every effect 
is produced by an adequate cause, the effect itself must be good. 
"We doubt the correctness of this doctrine. * * * 

Opinion of Rev. Silas Tyrrell. 

A new work has been presented to the world, either to be accepted 
or rejected, according to the unfolded capacity of each individual 
reader to perceive and comprehend the beautiful and sublime truths 
contained in it, I regard it as a work of rare merit — a work calcu- 
lated to arouse man from his mental slumbers, and cause him to in- 
vestigate the works of nature with a viewv to ascertain whether the 
universal Cause has in reality made a mistake, or whether all things 
that exist were produced by infinite wisdom and goodness. If God 
has made no mistake — if every thing in existence is the product of 
infinite wisdom and goodness, then Dr. Child, in declaring that what- 
ever is, is right, has only given utterance to God's eternal truth. 

No matter how much a man may argue against it, he can no more 
overthrow it by sophistry and special pleading than he can annihilate 
the Deity. He may ransack the whole universe, and array all the 
various and conflicting phenomena against it ; he may bring forward 
all the antagonizing influences, interests, and conditions that exist in 
human society, as so many arguments to destroy it ; yet after all that 
he can do or say, he will be compelled to fall back upon a perfect 
providence, and declare with Dr. Child, that whatever is, is right. 

Mr. A. has read this work, and he feels bound to oppose it, because 
he honestly believes that the principles which it inculcates will have 
a tendency to corrupt and debase the minds of those who read it. 

Mr. B. read the same work, and he feels called upon to exert his 
influence in its favor, because he candidly believes that no man or 
woman can read it without being benefited thereby. Here we have 
two individuals who have read the same work, and the opinion of the 
one is diametrically opposed to the opinion of the other. Now which 
is right ? Dr. Child's book declares that both are right, and I believe 
it. The simple reason why they lo not view the subject alike, is 
because they view it from different stand-points. 

Mr. B. has no more reason to find fault with Mr. A. for not being 
able to see the subject in the same light that he does, than he has to 



10 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

find fault with yonder peach-tree for not being laden with rich, goliler, 
fruit, when the tree is only in blossom. In due time, nature's laws 
will individualize anl ripen the peaches, and he will be enabled to 
pluck the fruit and eat his fill. And if he will only possess his soul 
in patience, and wait until Mr. A. comes up to his stand-point, and 
the truth becomes unfolded in him, they 'will both see alike, think 
alike, and believe alike. No man can form an idea of justice, right, 
and truth, beyond the development of the real principle which is in- 
herent in himself. Hence the many conflicting opinions, the discord 
and confusion that exists in the world. What one man honestly be- 
lieves to be truth, another man just as honestly believes to be error. 
To the one it is truth, while to the other it is error. There was a 
time when the sphericity of the earth was no more a truth in the es- 
timation of the would-be wise, than is the doctrine that whatever is, 
is right, in the estimation of the self-conceited of to-day. But as the 
heterodoxy of the past has become the orthodoxy of the present, so 
will the heterodoxy of the present become the orthodoxy of the fu- 
ture. 

I regard the work under consideration as the text book of the 
age in which we live. It is replete with fresh and immortal truths ; 
its utterances are bold, manly, and vigorous ; it speaks just what it 
means, and means precisely what it says ; it appeals not to the selfish 
views and feelings of man, but to his interior perceptions of the pure, 
the beautiful, and the good. In a word, it is just what humanity 
needs, and if mankind will study it, and reduce to practice its pure 
and exalted precepts- they may soon stand upon the same platform 
with its inspired author, and be enabled to see the hand of a holy, 
just, and good God in every thing in the universe, who is overruling 
all things for the welfare and happiness of the human race. 

Letter from Dr. Paige. 

Permit me to congratulate you on your triumphal researches 
after truth, and the happy manner in which it is presented in your 
recent work, u Whatever is, is Right," — also, through you, the pub- 
lic, in their possession of so rich a casket, filled with treasures so val- 
uable, and all inlaid with the spirit of truth. 

The doctrine, Whatever is, is Right, though not new, has received 
at your hands new and practical interpretations, which cannot fail to 
adapt themselves to the approbation of the more spiritually inclined, 



NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 11 

and understanding^ free. Faith in this doctrine, is but belie! that 
physically and spiritually we are, in all respeets, under the control 
of laws emanating from a God of infinite perfection. The source 
perfect — the laws good — the effect good, — not in part but altogether 
good. 

The practical effect of this doctrine is reconciliation — confidence 
in God and charity towards all, under whatever circumstances. We 
have none of us made ourselves, nor have we power to determine 
our conditions for an hour. Who can exist an hour, or moment, 
without the protection of infinite laws ? Who of us can change those 
laws for our own special accommodation V If not, what are the cir- 
cumstances of our existence but the results of laws over which we 
have no control ? If then, these laws, in their various workings, are 
the causes of differences among us, why should some of us reproach 
or spurn others, not in all respects like ourselves ? Shall the foot 
complain that it is not the head ? Or, shall the eye condemn the 
ear because it is not an eye ? All are but parts of one stupendous 
whole. All are working out the endless varieties and necessities of 
an existence God has bestowed, and none can exist of himself, or 
unto himself. All are dependent on the laws of eternal truth, and 
whatever their condition or their doings, those laws protect and pre- 
serve them. The laws of " Truth and God are one, and beauty 
dwells in them and they in her with like participation. Wherefore, 
then, O sons of earth ! would you dissolve the tie ? * 

L. Jud Pardee. 

I have read Dr. Child's beautiful book, with pleasure ; but my im - 
pression seems to be that it was written only from the top and back 
brain, where the flowers of love and intuition gi ow. So far as he 
goes, he presents the great principle to our consciousness ; but he 
does not put the question clear enough to us — does not occupy the 
entire ground. We should receive the thought as coming from the 
whole man — practical, spiritual, and intellectual. In his attempt to 
embody the principle that all is good, he does not occupy all spheres, 
and so does not see the relative evil, swept around by the arms of 
absolute good. Viewed afar off, every thing is right ; but in a rela- 
tive sense, while struggling with it, svil is a real thing. I cannot 
stop to speculate ; I must experience. Dr. Child's view has not been 



12 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

over th\£ whole ground. While he lays out a noble philosophy, he is 
not a practicalist. It is hard to tell what evil is ; but I should say 
that whatever stands in the way of my harmonious growth is evil. 
When evil comes up we must struggle against it, or acquiesce in it. 
We cannot stand still, more than the rolling sun or the flowing tide. 
Perhaps had we reached the third sphere of perfection, we could 
view the matter just as Dr. Child does. But some of us are weak 
and when evil sweeps around us we must battle it. It is not perpet- 
ual, because it is not needed for us forever to fight evil. 

Opinion of Dr. P. B. Randolph. 
Whatever is, is Right, by Dr. A. B. Child, of Boston, is an 
original work in eyevy sense of the word. It is the great literary 
lever of the nineteenth century ; its fulcrum appears to be common 
sense, and already is it overturning many of the popular and cher- 
ished systems of current philosophy. The writer is a large-hearted 
man, who sees things from the stand-point of universal love and char- 
ity, and whose philanthropy is as broad and deep as his truths are 
high and holy. Probably no work of its bulk contains so much that 
is suggestive, so much that is provocative of thought ; and no one can 
sit calmly down to its perusal without being refreshed thereby, nor 
can he rise from the delightful task, without feeling that he is both a 
better and a wiser man than when he began it, and this, be it known, 
is the highest encomium that can be bestowed on any book. 

From a Correspondent of the Banner of Light. 
I have just risen from the perusal of Dr. Child's new book, which 
is in many respects the most remarkable, and certainly the most sug- 
gestive book yet issued from the spiritual, or indeed any other, press, 
at least, within the last ten years. I think I may be allowed to say 
so, from the fact that not many books of any pretension have escaped 
my perusal, for the reason that, like yourselves, I was, and still am, 
deeply interested in whatever can throw light on man in his relation 
to the here, but especially to the great hereafter. The first impulse 
on taking up the volume is to laugh at the idea of " Whatever is, is 
Right," in view of the notorious fact, that many things seem wrong 
in this great world of ours; but as you settle down to its perusal, you 
become imbued, not perhaps with the author's spirit, but what is much 
oetter, with the spirit of philanthropy, and soon this sentiment of 



NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 13 

chai'ty for the feelings of poor, weak, erring man, becomes lost en- 
tirely in the great idea of the Divine Purpose in creation. Out- 
side the very limited realm of specialities we enter the great broad 
ocean of spiritual light, and thus illumined we behold the reality of 
Pope's splendid assertion, that 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul." 

In tLa full radiance of this light we see that specialities go for but 
little, and that little only as demonstrations of great general princi- 
ples. We see that the individual, his self, his acts, his thoughts, all 
yield to the good of the genus, the species, the nation, and the age, 
and for the reason that the book leads a man thus forward, I can but 
agree with Mr. Randolph, who in his recent pamphlet, speaking of 
Dr. Child's book, says — >" That no man can sit down to its perusal 
without rising therefrom a wiser and better citizen of the world, than 
when he began it." I am heartily glad that such a book — one alto- 
gether free, new, suggestive, and original, has appeared, nor am I 
surprised at the rapid sale it is meeting. The work ought to be in 
the hands of every person in the land, but especially should every 
Spiritualist read it. Trusting that " Whatever is, is Right/' may 
speedily perform its great mission, and that its gifted author will give 
the world another equally instructive volume, I remain, C. 

Henry D. Huston. 
" Whatever is, is Right " is a peaceful book, yet it is bold and 
fearless in its utterance. It is a curiosity, for it presents new and 
startling thought. It is replete with assertions that seem hard to 
controvert. It presents a religion with which the natural desires of 
every soul have a strong affinity. If the position taken by the book 
be true, it presents to humanity a new religion more beautiful than 
language can express. 

National Standard. 

Whatever is, is Right. By A. B. Child. 1 vol. 8vo. Boston. 

The leading idea in this work was given to the world more than 
a century ago, in the following lines, by Alexander Pope, in hia 
"Essay 01 Man:" — 



14 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

" All Nature is but Art unknown to thee ; 
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see ; 
All discord, harmony not understood; 
All partial evil, universal good ; 
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right." 

The broad ground is taken that positive evil has no existence in the 
universe — thus settling the long-discussed and vexed question of its 
origin ; that what appears to us to be evil in our infancy, is proven to 
be good in more advanced age ; that what we call evil is simply a con- 
dition of growth — a negative quality, and not a positive principle ; that 
if the cause of all causes be right and good, all else must be right 
and good as a logical consequence; that we cannot condemn the 
creature without condemning the Creator. We shall not attempt to 
dislodge the doctor's logic, but leave our readers to ponder the ques- 
tion for themselves. We can commend the book as an earnest, can- 
did, and fearless expression of the convictions of the author, upon a 
subject which has agitated the world more than all other subjects. 

Rev, J. S. Loveland. 

I like this book because it compels people to think. The greatest 
benefit one man can confer upon another is to compel him to think. 
* * *- * This book has aroused thousands, and will still other 
thousands. It has aroused attention which will never sleep, and 
awakened harmonies that will ever sing the song of joy in many 

bosoms. 

New Orleans Weekly Mirror. 

Whatever is, is Right. By A. B. Child, M.D. Boston. 

This is a work which has attracted a good deal of attention in the 
North. It is an endeavor to prove that there is philosophy as well 
as poetry in that immortal phrase of Pope's, " Whatever is, is right." 
As set forth in the title, it is a presentation of " the doctrine that all 
existence is as it was meant to be by Infinite Wisdom ; all that is, is 
good; all that is, is right." The questions of good and evil are thor- 
oughly canvassed, with the philosophy of human reforms. To talk 
of curing evil is, according to Dr. Child, little less than downright 
blasphemy. God, being the cause of every thing, is the cause of all 
evil, and to talk of curing evil is virtually to talk of curing God. He 



NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 15 

insists that in creation the manifestations of Infinite Wisdom exist 
thougli man mciy be incapable of tracing them, and that without evil, 
so-called, we could know nothing of good. 

The Spirit Guardian. 

We have here a book out of the old beaten road, for which, doubt- 
less, the public will be thankful. It will, certainly, relieve the mo- 
notony of our general reading to find a volume differing both in theory 
and style from all that have preceded it. Curiosity cannot fail tc 
open it in order to learn who it is that dare infringe on the stated 
belief of not merely one " Christian " but of all Christians ; and not 
only of Christians but of every other form of religionists in the known 
world. * * * 

We are heartily glad that this book has appeared. It will arouse 
to energetic thought, many minds, and will prove a lever of great 
power with which to move the world. 

Miss Laura De Force. 

I keep this book as my Bible, and when disposed I open it and 
read where I open, and I have been richly rewarded for the reading. 
It matters not how many times the same page, or pages, have been 
perused. I cannot, perhaps, give a better expression of my views in 
regard to the contents of the book, than by quoting from its preface ; 
viz., " It teaches a doctrine, if doctrine it may be called," that to me 
44 is ineffably beautiful and unutterably grand." 

Horace Seaver. 

This is a very singular and interesting book. * * * It will 
not find much sympathy except with strong minds. 

Mr. Rice. 

Strong and fearless men will not shrink from a perusal of the doc- 
trine contained in this book. Most people will find more sympathy 
with it than they will dare express. 

Mr. Tullis. 

Some time all who read this book will see the beauty and the glory 
of the doctrine therein contained. 



16 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

Richard Burke. 

This book has and will receive a severity of treatment from the 
author's friends that is almost unparalleled. A member of almost 
any religious sect will publish a book, and all the members of that 
sect will receive and approve it — but here it is different. * * * 
There is more in this book than its opposers credit to it. 

F. C. Blakely, M.D. 

The opinion of Dr. Child, that " Whatever is, is Right," seems to 
have elicited a great deal of opposition with Spiritualists and those 
who oppose Spiritualism. That the latter class should oppose it, was 
no more than we expected ; but opposition from the former, we did 
not expect as much. * * * 

Dr. Child has taken a bold position — a position his intuitive soul 
knows is true ; and all the ridicule that can be elicited against him 
cannot shake him, because he has built upon a rock, and Christ is 
that rock, which the world has never yet properly understood. If 
there ever was a man, since the time of a Peter and a John, that has 
recognized and understood the deep things of God, that Jesus taught 
near nineteen centuries ago, that man is A. B. Child. Therefore, 
my dear Brother C, press on and continue to lean on Him who is in- 
visible, and by and by God will raise up friends in this great and 
vital spiritual truth, which shall prove to all that you are not running 
after a fantasy of the brain. 

Take this vital and glorious truth from me, and you knock from 
under my soul its only support and comfort in this world of sorrow 
and trouble. Did not the dear Jesus say, " Seek ye first the king- 
dom of heaven and his righteousness and all things," should be added 
to you ? What is meant here, " his righteousness," is nothing but the 
faith the Saviour inculcated, and the same Dr. C. believes in when 
he says, " whatever is, is right, for it is our heavenly Father that gov- 
erns all things, and directs and intends all things that transpire, and 
therefore must be right." This is the faith so often spoken of in the 
Gospel, and it is a very simple thing — a constant and perpetual trust 
in our Father, in whom we live, move, and have our being ; and 
when we have such a trust, and firmly believe in the " all right " 
doctrine, our lives will be like a placid river, full of love and peace. 



NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 17 

Mrs. F. O. Hyzer. 

* * # That a fearless, truth-loving soul, with energy of will, 
clearness of brain, and honesty of heart, hath at length been found 
to say and prove so much of the reality of that central idea in nature 
as hath blessed humanity and glorified Deity through the recent la- 
bors of Dr. Child, seems to present a fitting occasion for a world's 
thanksgiving. 

In a world so full of beauty, so bounteous in revenues of blessing 
one scarcely knows what can give one most joy ; but if I were to 
choose of them all one of the choicest, I am sure it would be to have 
another mind, in a more masterly, forcible, and clearer manner than 
I could ever hope to express them, elaborate the thought-germs which 
had throbbed and burned within my spirit-world for a lifetime. From 
the hour of my earliest questionings of life's philosophy, " Whatever 
is, is Right," as the unalterable conviction of my soul, hath been the 
sunlight of my existence, and in its radiance I have kept warm on 
the apex of icebergs ; in its beams I have shaken out and dried my 
tempest-drenched mantle, and warmed and invigorated my benumbed 
limbs after shipwrecks. The spirit of the Idea has been the God of 
my worship, for all of which I could conceive concerning Love and 
Wisdom, the dual power of the universe, revealed its grandeur its 
majesty and beauty therethrough. 

La all my dealing with humanity, I have ever sought to impress it 
with the reality of this truth ; but lacking in language, constructive- 
ness, or some other medium which it is evident our Brother Child 
possesses, I have shut myself up, in a measure, in the chambers of the 
interior to rest in the blessed consciousness that Infinite Truth could 
find fitting avenues for expression in its own gravitation of uses, and 
that I, as far as this idea and its thought-constructions were con- 
cerned, was like some musicians, a far better conceiver than executer. 
Now the long-looked-for medium has revealed itself, and I feel that I 
can, to a better and greater extent, appreciate the joy of our de- 
parted friends whose souls are glowing with great light for earth's 
children, but who fail to find a fitting channel or medium for its re- 
flection. You know how joyful, how enraptured they seem to feel 
when at length they find one ; and, in the same manner, I rejoice 
that in Dr. Child I behold a medium for the exposition of a truth 



18 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

which I so yearned to find a voice for. Soil of soul, sufficiently un- 
folded, will receive into its bosom the golden grains from the pages of 
his book, and bring forth rapidly the rich harvest of charity, of which 
to weave warm, soft garments to wrap round the erring brother and 
sister, and protect them from the piercing blasts of pharisaical con- 
demnation and scorn, while those who fear that an appropriation of 
its smallest germ would lead them into an expression of unbridled 
lust, in the form of murder, robbery, theft, and rapine, will, by an 
abhorrence and total rejection of the work, keep their infant orbs of 
vision from this too intense effulgence of God's love. * * * 

e. a 

Whatever is, is Bight is a comforting doctrine ; it gives us 
more charity ; we are more willing to excuse missteps in others when 
we think, that to the eye of the All Father their course is as good as 
ours. Of course this doctrine destroys the idea that we are free 
agents. It is fatalism in another form, but fatalism is the only logical 
doctrine ; and the more that one thinks of it, the more real does it 
seem, and the more willing we are to accept it. 

My dear friend, Dr. Child, I thank the good Father that he has 
made you utter the thoughts contained in this book. I believe it is 
calculated to work a great reform ; it is a deathblow to sectarianism ; 
no man can say any longer, this is the only way to be saved. This 
book, I think, is a stepping-stone to the Church Universal, where 
there is no creed, no sect, no high, no low, no good, no bad ; where 
all are equal, all are the followers and disciples of Christ, who saw 
no difference, but considered all men equally good. 

The World's Paper. 

Whatever is, is Right, is the name of a book sent us from 
Boston. This book owes its origin to A. B. Child, M.D., and must 
be read by every thinking person with much interest. We cannot 
withhold a word of commendation for it, as the author takes up very 
important matters, and clearly and honorably defines the truth of 
the caption of the work. We bid it welcome to our table, and hope 
that many such works will be the production of its publishers. 



NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 19 

Mrs. J. H. Conant (entranced). 

The doctrine, Whatever is, is Right. * * * When properly 
understood, this modern religious light is capable of giving vast 
knowledge to humanity ; capable of lighting up all the secret avenues 
of man's internal being ; but when imperfectly understood, it is capa- 
ble of making a hell for the individual who receives the light. To 
each child of God hath been given wisdom, by which he is to decide 
upon all subjects that refer to his present or future residence. 

The intelligence who puts forth this theory we are to decide upon, 
hath seen not only the past, the present, but the future of life. He 
hath looked at the coming glory of humanity, and then he hath pre- 
sented it to the world. * * * 

La Revue De L'ouest. 

Optimism. — All is well. We have before us a new and excel- 
lent thing in the form of a book, written by A. B. Child, of Boston, 
entitled, " Whatever is, is Right." The title is not precisely a new 
thing, for it has already been uttered by Pope ; and Leibnitz certified 
that we live in the best possible world. But it appears to us that the 
English poet with the German philosopher have not written in as 
categorical a manner as the writer of this book. We cannot say, 
however, for a certainty, as the works of these two writers are neither 
found in the Eutopian library nor the tens of thousands in the sur- 
rounding. However, it matters very little to us, as our Boston ian 
author may have the merit of the invention. He ought to hold him- 
self very little there, if he is true to the principles presented in his 
book. 

Is his thesis true ? Is it true that all may be right in the physical, 
moral, and social world ? Behold ! It is necessary to examine. This 
we shall leave the reader to decide after reading the manner in which 
Mr. Child sustains his opinion. In all ages thinkers have tortured 
the mind in trying to solve the problem of evil. The most ancient 
of all suppositions is, that the cause of evil is an eternal principle, in- 
cessantly combating with good. A later supposition puts forth the 
origin of evil in the rising of a creature against the Creator. A third 
supposition ties itself to the second, and indicates that free-will is the 
cause of all moral troubles that have invaded the world. Upon this 



20 NOTICES OF THIS BOOK. 

theme of free-will, philosophers have debated and reasoned from ai/e 
to age, making so much to lean in favor of liberty, and so much in 
favor of fatality, so that one day it winks at evil, and another day 
yields to it universal supremacy. However, across this apparent 
chaos of diverse theories, one recognizes that evil has gradually lost 
its importance in human ideas, and that in the modern mind there is 
a tendency to consider evil as a relative and transitory condition 
sooner than as a definite and absolute state of things or beings. It 
is evident that the doctrine of development and of progress, above 
all, as it is presented by the new spiritual school, strikes into ruin the 
old theological dogmas of hell, the devil, and sin, and that it promises 
to men the cure of all their evils, in showing to them in the future the 
ideal of perfection that they have sought in the past. Is it surpris- 
ing, then, that there is found a man fearless and bold enough to af- 
firm the actual realization of universal good, and to settle, in one 
word, the most difficult question of philosophy, in denying purely 
and simply the existence of evil ? In this view of the question, then, 
this is not the worst solution that may have been given of this diffi- 
cult problem, and it is probably the most clear. 

If the negation of evil is a paradox, it is necessary at least to rec- 
ognize that Mr. Child has examined it under all its phases, and that 
he accepts resolutely all the metaphysical and moral consequences. 
We here introduce his first chapter, which contains in germ the whole 
book. * * * 

There are great thoughts and good words in the book. * * * 
On our part, how would we be able to criticise a man who abstains 
from all criticism and reproach with regard to others ? We prefer 
rather to recite some passages from his book. * * * 

We agree with Dr. Child on the tranquillizing and moralizing in- 
fluence of optimism. However, our philosopher is satisfied to believe 
in progress and rest in reform. He has beautifully said, that vice is 
as legitimate as virtue, and that falsehood is as true as truth ; there 
evidently are some things, some institutions, and even some men, that 
this doctrine does not agree with. The war of this doctrine is in its 
opposers, not in the doctrine. Mr. Child recognizes himself, then, 
that there is much to change in these opposing men, institutions, and 
things. I propose to him to amend his apothegm, and say, All that 
which is y is good, but in condition of becoming better. 



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